


Persona 3: Endless Night

by OctopusGuardian



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, This is my first time using Ao3 Idk what I'm doing bear with me, This isn't really focused on any one character I'm trying to get them all in the spotlight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctopusGuardian/pseuds/OctopusGuardian
Summary: Things can't seem to get worse for S.E.E.S as they try to find a way to end the Dark Hour, but life takes a turn when the Dark Hour they fight to get rid of decides to stick around longer than it should. Now with a new Dark Hour that hosts a new breed of shadows that are harder to kill and a pressing question in their minds, S.E.E.S must fight for their lives, and an answer.





	1. Chapter 1

  An arrow flew across the dark room, piercing the targeted shadow directly through its head. The creature fell face first on the hard floor, disintegrating away.

“Nice shot!” Behind her, Yukari heard the unmistakable voice of Junpei call as he hacked away at another shadow.

“You’d better pay attention to what you’re doing!” Yukari shouted back, watching as the shadow he was fighting lunged at him.

Junpei leapt out of the way and sliced its head clean off, grinning back at her.

S.E.E.S was on a routine mission in Tartarus, taking on a high floor in the Harabah block and cleaning out the shadows that inhabited it. The group tried not to spread out too much, but when a particularly large army of shadows scrambled into the room, they all separated into smaller segments to take them on. From across the room, loud barks and gunshots echoed off the walls as Koromaru and Aigis took on a large shadow in the corner.

Fuuka stood in the center of the room, her Persona summoned. She was monitoring the weaknesses of the shadows, calling out to her companions and telling them if certain attacks were stronger or weaker against the opponents.

Akihiko and Minato battled a large shadow that tried to advance on Fuuka, while Mitsuru and Ken were nearby Junpei and Yukari, finishing up the rest of the smaller ones.

They all regrouped in the center of the room after the last shadow was struck down.

“I think that’s enough for tonight, everyone. We should head back now,” Mitsuru sheathed her rapier and gestured to the warp that would take them back to the first floor.

A rumble of agreement sounded through the group. They were all sweaty and tired; the Dark Hour was soon going to come to an end.

The walk back to the dorm was short and easy. The group had gone back the same way so many times that they didn’t even have to look at the street signs. It was as if their feet were on autopilot as they kept up conversation on the way back home. They bypassed several coffins that were surely the few pedestrians that walked the streets at night.

Reaching the front of the dorm, Mitsuru swung open the door with everyone following her lead. On a typical night after shadow slaying, S.E.E.S would usually shower and go to bed. That was where everyone was headed, if not for Aigis’ odd behavior.

Said robot was stood firmly just outside the building, not moving in like everyone else.

“Yo Aigis, you alright there?” Junpei slightly nudged the android to stir her.

Her bright eyes were transfixed on the large moon in the dark green sky. She refused to look away for a few more moments before speaking.

“Why is the Dark Hour still in effect?”

She spoke softly, but her words reached everyone in the dorm. Yukari and Fuuka stopped on the first steps of the stairs to look back at her.

“What was that?” Akihiko walked back outside and stood behind her. “What did you say?”

“My internal clock reads 12:03 in the morning, yet the side effects of the Dark Hour are still in motion,” Aigis explained.

“Well, maybe your clock is off a bit. It could happen, right?” Junpei looked back at the others.

Instead of words, a loud crashing sound echoed in response. The rest of S.E.E.S rushed outside to investigate. A small cluster of shadows scrambled around in the street, knocking things down.

“How did we miss those?” Junpei asked, nearly yelling his thoughts.

“Some of them must’ve been following us,” Akihiko said back to him.

Without saying anything, Aigis rushed down the street, engaging with the dark creatures.

“Come one!” Akihiko urged. He ran down the street himself, pulling out his evoker.

Gunshots rang out as Aigis hammered on the large shadows. The grotesque things had an unnecessary amount of legs, some of which were sticking up in the air, not reaching the ground. Each shadow wore a green mask with no eyes or mouth, there was only lines for eyebrows and the imprint of a nose. A large open mouth was drooling under the mask, with large bottom teeth overtaking most of the space.

“I need your help!” Aigis cried out, wrestling one of the shadows, the many legs covering its body kicking her down.

Akihiko took a running leap at the shadow nearest to him and let out a series of strong punches.

By then, most of S.E.E.S had caught up to the pair, yanking out their evokers.

“Come, Isis!” Yukari called out, pressing the gun to her forehead.

With a bright flash of light, her Persona materialized, summoning a large gust of wind that tore through a shadow to the left of Akihiko.

The shadow turned away from the boxer and fixated on its attacker. With a loud screech, it jumped forward and began chomping down on Yukari’s Persona, using its large bottom teeth to dig into the body of Isis.

Yukari stumbled back in pain, not expecting the immediate response. Surely the shadow should have been stunned in the very least, even if it was resistant to wind. Yet this shadow hadn’t even flinched.

Fuuka stood near the back of the group after summoning Juno. Focusing on the shadows in front of her, she scrunched her head and closed her eyes, waiting for the voice of her Persona to lead her to an answer.

She was not given anything.

Yukari looked to be in terrible pain and her Persona eventually shrunk away, breaking into tiny pieces of blue light. Akihiko was struggling under a shadow and Aigis had begun to back up from the enemies, waiting for the assistance of her companions.

Fuuka wanted to help desperately, not being a fighter herself. The shadows were right in front of them all, so why wasn’t she getting a reading off of them?

Awaiting Fuuka’s command, Mitsuru stood next to her, offering protection if it was needed and support if the weaknesses of the shadows were ice-based.

Distracted by the monsters before her, she almost didn’t see the look of distress on Fuuka’s face.

“Yamagishi, what is it?” She turned away from the battle, resting her hand on the outside of Juno.

“I can’t sense anything from the shadows,” Fuuka whispered, a mix of fear and confusion taking over.

The battle raged on as Minato and Junpei both drew their swords, rushing into the crowd of black mass and hacking away at the many appendages sticking out.

Akihiko stumbled out from the mass, having finally thrown off his attacker.

“Be careful! These guys are really strong!” Akihiko called out, before slowly getting to his feet.

Just as he said that, Ken was flung backwards in the air, hitting the ground with a loud thud. He groaned in pain, reaching for his spear that had landed a few feet away from him.

Koromaru growled and took an attack stance. With a loud howl, he summoned Cerberus, letting lose a fury of attacks on the shadows.

Yukari made her way over to Akihiko, clicking the evoker to her head and bringing Isis once again. She began healing Akihiko, who still hadn’t rejoined the battle due to his fatigue.

Aigis was running out of options. She had made her way to the other side of the shadows, away from the team. She had an opportunity to strike with the shadows’ backs turned to her as they fought the others. However, she knew she ran the risk of shooting her friends if she did. In addition, by summoning Athena she would be at risk of the same punishment that Yukari received. Once the attention of the shadows shifted to her, it would be five against one, while also taking a lot of damage herself.

Plans began shifting through her mind as she began to analyze her situation more thoroughly. Perhaps if she could separate a shadow from the bunch and take it on, she could keep it away from the others and make their load lighter, so to speak. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she began to put her plan into action.

After the healing, Akihiko was up again, this time summoning Caesar to fight.

“Back up guys, I’m unleashing a storm!” He shouted.

Junpei and Minato ran behind him, covered in scratches and scrapes, with Minato even sporting what looked like a bite on his face.

Koromaru backed off too, understanding the command. He grabbed ahold of Ken’s jacket and pulled him to safety as he ran back. Aigis heard the call and put off her plan of assault until the shadows were stunned.

With a brilliant flash of light, Caesar let out a full force Ziodyne, shocking all the enemies in sight and killing two of them.

With three remaining, Aigis used her new found energy to grab one of the legs on the middle shadow and toss it away, letting out a torrent of gunshots in its body as it flew in the air.

Ken stood next, petting Koromaru and then rushing forward to the shadow in front of him. He spun the spear above his head and leapt in the air, stabbing the shadow nearest to him. The shadow’s mask cracked and its body slumped down as it begun to turn to mush.

Aigis finished up her opponent with a swift kick and Mitsuru finally took her stance, summoning Artemisia and commanding a strong ice attack, swiftly putting an end to the last shadow.

Juno disappeared in a flash of light and the group let out a sigh of relief.

“Did anyone notice that those shadows were a lot stronger than usual?” Junpei was the first to speak up after the ordeal.

“You think?” Yukari shot back.

“I’m sorry everyone,” Fuuka spoke up next, looking at the ground. “Juno couldn’t get a read on the shadows you were fighting. I don’t understand why, it was like they were blocking my ability or something.”

“Hey, don’t let it get to your head, we were all having trouble with those things; though I think that’s pretty obvious,” Junpei grinned at her and gestured to the injuries he and Minato had.

“Indeed, there was something off with those shadows. Besides that, we have not addressed the pressing issue that remains,” Mitsuru added. “Why is it still the Dark Hour?”

Everyone was silent. There was no present answer to the question, only theories that gave more questions.

“Well, let me heal you guys first, then we can discuss things back at the dorm,” Yukari summoned Isis again, casting a healing spell that closed all the small cuts and turned their bruised skin back to their proper skin tones.

 “Maybe we should get some sleep first. This could all be some misunderstanding, right? Maybe the clock is off or something. Besides, we’re all really tired after that battle. If we are correct, then we can discuss it in the morning after everyone’s rested up. We can also talk about those new shadows and what happened with Fuuka,” Minato spoke up, looking to each member of the team. He noted the tired look in their eyes, fatigue taking its toll on some of them more than others.

“I agree. We should all rest. We’ll discuss things in the morning,” With a flick of her hair, Mitsuru walked down the street and inside the dorm, with the others following behind.


	2. Chapter 2

Aigis stared out of the large window in the living room. The sky had not changed at all throughout the night. It had not gotten darker or let any light except from the moon show.

She could not figure the cause of the event. There had been no signal to its upcoming change, nor had the Dark Hour exhibited any odd behavior prior.

Possibilities ran though her processor as she thought over different explanations she came up with. If not for the sound of footfall from the staircase, Aigis was sure she would’ve nearly “drowned in her thoughts” as she recalled Yukari once said.

Aigis turned around, looking at the newcomer. It was Mitsuru, her full head of red hair brushed down so the sleep was nearly invisible. She gave the robot a small smile as she made her way down.

“Good morning, didn’t you get any sleep?” Mitsuru asked, making her way to the kitchen.

“I went into sleep mode for a few hours, but I felt my time would be better spent monitoring the situation outside,” Aigis explained. She followed Mitsuru into the kitchen as she talked, keeping up the conversation.

Mitsuru stopped and looked out the window herself. “You wouldn’t happen to have any ideas of what’s happening, would you?”

“I was just thinking of any possibility before you arrived. I’m not sure myself yet,” Aigis said.

“Hmmm.”

Mitsuru grabbed a mug from the cupboard, intending to make herself a cup of coffee. She stopped herself halfway, coffee grounds in hand, sighing.

“I’m so used to the same wake up ritual that I forgot already,” She elaborated, putting the mug and coffee back to their places. There wasn’t an electricity during the Dark Hour, so the coffee maker would be useless.

She grabbed a clear glass instead, walking over to the fridge and holding the glass under the water dispenser.

“…”

“Mitsuru, I do not believe that the water system works during the dark hour either.”

“…I’ve noticed Aigis.”

Akihiko entered the kitchen a few minutes later, walking in on Mitsuru slumped over at the table with Aigis, looking rather drowsy.

“Need a coffee?” He joked.

“I wish,” Mitsuru sat up straight, looking at him with an amused face.

Akihiko looked towards the coffee maker, then back to Mitsuru a few times. She could almost see the gears turning in his head, before he closed his eyes with a groan.

“I forgot already, and what’s worse is that I don’t have a drink to go with it,” He massaged his temples and sat next to Mitsuru at the table.

“What time is it, anyways? Do you think we should wake up the others soon?” He asked. He looked at Aigis, who had remained quiet during their exchange.

“The current time is seven in the morning,” Aigis answered.

“When we wake them up, what are we even going to do? Do we have any leads?” Akihiko asked. They all sat in silence for a moment.

“I think,” Mitsuru’s voice drew Akihiko back to her. “That we should investigate Tartarus. Perhaps there is something there that might give us an answer.”

Akihiko nodded, before standing up.

“We should get moving now, I’m going to wake everyone up,” He left the kitchen, trudging back upstairs.

 

One slow moving hour later, S.E.E.S was finished getting ready, not accustomed to waking up without certain amenities, light being a prominent one. They finally began to remind themselves more after having heard a loud string of curses come from the bathroom. Junpei, who had grabbed clean clothes with the intention of taking a shower that morning, exited the bathroom in his old clothes with an annoyed look on his face and his body still dirty and smelly from the previous night.

The walk to Tartarus was slow, with everyone keeping their eyes out for shadows. If the Dark Hour had not ended while they slept, then the possibility of shadows roaming the street was high. They had to be wary of their surroundings just in case they were spotted, lest they risk being ambushed by more of the strong shadows they encountered before.

The team didn’t see anything on the way, which eased their worries for a short time.

After entering Tartarus and spending some time looking around in it, they were shocked. There wasn’t a single shadow to be found. They climbed up further in the tower, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. All the while, Fuuka kept behind everyone with Juno summoned. Mitsuru had encouraged her to give Juno’s sensing ability another shot and so far, all her attempts were unsuccessful. It wasn’t that it didn’t work at all, she tried to explain. She could tell where everyone in their group was, but everywhere else she tried ended up being empty.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Yukari said as the group exited Tartarus several hours later. “There weren’t any shadows in there in the first place, so of course you didn’t sense anything!”

Fuuka didn’t answer. She had an odd look on her face as she looked around.

“What is this I’m feeling now?” She asked herself, looking down at the evoker in her hand.

“What should we do now?” Junpei asked the group.

“It would seem that the best course of action would be to go back to the dorm. We can discuss our next move-” A loud screeching sound pierced the air, interrupting Mitsuru.

At the same time, realization struck Fuuka as she yelled, “Shadows!”

A large cluster of dark mass in the air above them shrieked and howled with malice.

Minato watched the winged creatures as they dove towards the group. The shadows had large, thick wings with long claws. They had a singular eye in the middle of their head with fur covering their bodies.

The members of S.E.E.S all took their different stances. Some of them ducked, some backed away from each other and Aigis stood with Minato, guns raised and ready to fire.

Koromaru had backed away from the others due to the surprise appearance of the shadows. Unfortunately, it was almost as if stepping away from the group only got the attention of the shadows to focus on the poor dog.

With a swift motion, the leading shadow of the flock snatched Koro off the ground and carried him into the sky, the other eleven shadows breaking their diving stance and following.

“Koromaru!” Ken called, running after the flying shadows.

The small dog yelped in the claws of the beast, biting and howling. It tried to summon its Persona to attack, but as soon as Cerberus appeared, the shadows swarmed it, attacking it until it shattered with a bright flash of light.

By now, the rest of S.E.E.S snapped out of their surprise and started chasing after Ken and the flock of bird-like shadows.

“Kala-Nemi!” Ken drew his evoker and pulled the trigger to his chest, bringing forth his Persona.

No sooner had the Persona appeared than the shadows had begun to attack it, splitting themselves into two groups, the leading one still holding a firm grasp on its prisoner.

After slashing away at Kala-Nemi into non-existence, another shadow from the flock broke away and swooped down on Ken, intending to pluck him up from the ground as well.

“Zio!” Caesar appeared in front of Ken and sent a bolt of lightning into the shadow, effectively killing it.

Ken stumbled back, having been quite close the attack, but was unharmed. He was shaken up a bit, but stood and continued to run. Akihiko caught up with him and tried to keep his eyes on the shadows ahead.

They were getting too far away. If they didn’t do anything soon, Koromaru was going to be carried off to wherever these things came from. No-one could bring themselves to think of what would happen after that.

“What do we do?” Ken asked, his tone reflecting his worried thoughts and emotions.

Aigis running ahead of the pair was a sufficient answer.

With her inhuman agility, she dashed ahead and summoned Athena, jumping high in the air and crashing down on two shadows from the group. She kept a careful eye on Koromaru, making sure not to hurt him.

Meanwhile, Minato eyed an alley that he was about to pass and ran through it, separating from the group. He hoped that he could use the shortcut to get ahead of the shadows.

The shadows proved to be tougher than Aigis had first thought. Despite the fact that the one shadow Akihiko had killed died in one hit, these shadows didn’t seem to be phased by any of Aigis’ bullets or Athena’s attacks. Her best choice would be to try to attack the leading shadow.

Bouncing off of one of the shadows, she flew towards the dark mass holding onto Koromaru. With one swift motion, she attacked the claws that held the animal in its grip and drove the claws away from each other.

She had not taken in account the fact that Koromaru was in fact a dog, and couldn’t fly.

Koromaru plummeted towards the ground, yelping in fear.

Aigis, caught up fighting the shadow, did not have the time to get to him.

“Orpheus!”

Minato appeared from behind a building in front of the group with his evoker drawn. Orpheus burst out in a flash of blue and caught Koromaru. The dog barked, giving the impression of a thank you, before summoning Cerberus once again. The three-headed dog Persona let out a burst of flames that sent many of the shadows flying back and hitting the pavement.

“We need to find some cover!” Aigis cried out, having released herself from the shadow to land on the ground. The rest of the group had caught up, relieved that Koromaru was well and slightly confused because they were positive that Minato had just been right behind them.

“There!”

Yukari pointed to a small convenience store on their side of the road.

Everyone rushed in, thankful that the door was unlocked and that they were temporarily no longer threatened by the flying beasts.

Yukari got to healing Koromaru with Ken sitting near the dog, reassuring it.

“Why are we hiding? We should go out there and finish those things while we can!” Akihiko argued, standing up and watching outside through the front window.

“They’re too strong. There are also way too many of them. We had a lot of trouble taking on those five new ones before, remember? Now there’s eleven!” Mitsuru said back.

“There’s actually more now,” Minato added.

“What?”

“When I went ahead, some ground shadows spotted me and followed me, I can still see them out there,” He pointed across the street where a group of the many-legged shadows stood.

“How are we going to get out of here then? We can’t fight all of them off, can we?” Yukari asked, looking outside herself at the growing chaos. The shadows seemed to be getting more frustrated.

“I have an idea, though I don’t think anyone is going to like it,” Minato said. He pointed to the back of the building. “There’s a back door to this place, so the best thing for us to do would be to get back to the dorm. However, if we all try to go out the door at once, we will be easier to notice. I think we need to sneak back to the dorm in smaller groups.”

Everyone stayed quiet after he finished.

“Arisato is right. We should try to go back quietly. We didn’t find anything at Tartarus, so we should discuss our next course of action at the dorm. Are there any objections?” Mitsuru stood in the middle of everyone and looked around.

“So, who’s going with who?

“I shall go with Minato,” Aigis immediately raised her hand and walked forward, standing next to him.

“Can you take Koromaru with you?” Ken asked, looked at the pair. “I’m really worried about him, I don’t want him to be in anymore danger. If it weren’t for you guys, I don’t think we would’ve been able to get him back.”

“Indeed. We shall keep Koro in our possession until we get back to the dorm. Come here, Koro,” Aigis held out her hand, calling the dog to her.

Koro barked in excitement, wagging his tail and ready to go.

“I’ll go with Ken,” Akihiko finally backed away from his view of the outside and stood next to the boy.

“Me ‘n Fuuka can go together, right?” Junpei spoke up, wrapping an arm around the smaller girl.

“Yeah, I guess. Though I won’t be too much help,” She said quietly.

“Then it’s me and you, Mitsuru,” Yukari finished, taking her place next to the upperclassman.

“We’ll go at different intervals so we won’t attract the shadows’ attention. Any questions?” Mitsuru glanced around at the group, feeling more confident now that they had a better plan. “Then let’s go. Minato, Aigis, Koromaru, you’re first.”

The trio snuck out the door at a slow pace, making sure their feet didn’t scuff the ground too hard. Minato readied himself to snap Koromaru’s snout shut if the dog decided to let out a bark.

They didn’t see many shadows on their way back, though they did have to stand and hide a few times behind a few garbage cans when one or two would pass in front of them.

They had a close call when Minato stumbled and almost knocked over a line of coffins like dominoes, but Aigis managed to grab his arm in time before he could tip over the objects.

“Thanks,” he sighed as he fell back on the sidewalk, breathing heavy. Some shadows had only just turned the corner of the street they were on.

As the dorm came into view, they could only hope that the others would do as well.

 

Back at the building, Yukari and Mitsuru were readying themselves to go out next. They had talked about the order they would go in. Fuuka mentioned that right before the flying shadows made their appearance, she could sense them, and could sense the shadows outside now as well.

“Can you go last, since you can sense them now? You’ll be able to keep away from them better,” Yukari asked.

“Yes, I’ll do my best,” Fuuka answered.

“Hey, don’t worry! I’ll keep ya safe!” Junpei patted her on the back with a grin.

Yukari and Mitsuru left afterwards, sneaking down the street.

They made it halfway before a large surge of shadows appeared.

“I don’t think we can make it back this way, we’ll need to find another way,” Yukari whispered, nudging Mitsuru.

The older girl hummed in agreement, turning around and walking back while staying close to the ground. There were a few more ways to make it back to the dorm, but it would take longer.

They trudged down a few alleyways, going parallel to their path.

“Come on, the side road here is empty. We can walk at a quicker pace,” Yukari whispered.

They jogged down the street, eyes open. The dorm was a few blocks down. All they would have to do is make a turn and then continue down the road.

After turning the corner, they stopped in their tracks. A large shadow blocked the whole road. Yukari was almost spotted, and if it weren’t for Mitsuru’s quick hand, they would’ve had a heck of a battle on their hands.

“I think we might be stuck here for a while,” Mitsuru said, peeking around the corner at the literal shadow wall.

 

Akihiko and Ken crept out of the building with plenty of time in between the preceding group, giving a ‘good luck’ to the last two members before shutting the door behind them.

They both took long strides, not entirely quiet as they made their way back. They were anxious to get back quick, expecting the others to already be there.

A loud shriek hit the air. They turned around to see two shadows looking in their direction, drooling with their big open mouths.

“Run!” Akihiko grabbed Ken’s arm and pulled him away, the shadows rushing after them as they dashed towards the sidewalk and around the corner. The shadows kept a close distance, and as much as Akihiko wanted to turn and fight, he wasn’t sure if he could take on the two, even with Ken.

“Stick to the plan,” He muttered to himself, taking a sharp left turn. They were getting off course from the path to the dorm, but if they could lose the shadows as they made the long way around, then they wouldn’t have to waste their energy fighting.

It didn’t seem to matter how many turns they made, the shadows would not let up on their chase. Akihiko could tell that even Ken was beginning to get frustrated and was itching to fight, but he pushed the boy in front of him. He’d gotten himself into trouble before by picking fights that were bigger than him. He wasn’t about to let it happen again.

He hoped that the shadows would get tired. He figured he could hold up for a longer time, what with him making daily visits to the gym. Ken was also in fairly good shape. If it came to it, he would not object to carrying Ken along, even if it would slow himself down.

Ken risked a glance back at the shadows, huffing and puffing as he tried to keep him distance from the monsters behind him.

He hoped the others would have better luck.

 

Junpei creaked the door open, peeking out.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, keeping low to the ground and watching where he stepped.

Fuuka followed at a quick pace to keep right near him, concentrating on her task at hand. Perhaps it was the initial first stress of learning about the Dark Hour’s prolonged time that had masked her ability for the time from being able to sense the enemies. Or maybe the shadows that were appearing now were so powerful, they could mask her ability.

Whatever the case, she could now feel where a few of the closer ones were.

“Duck!” She tapped Junpei’s shoulder and whispered, stepping under a covering that was attached to the building closest to them. One of the flying ones had made a sudden change in flight, and had flown a bit close to them.

“What is it?” Junpei whispered back to her.

“One of the flying ones got a bit close, I was just being cautious…” Fuuka trailed off.

There was something new she felt. Something strong.

“Fuuka?” Junpei looked back at her with a confused look now.

There was evident worry on her face, mixed with fear.

“What is it?”

“Shadows,” She breathed, “Too many to count. They’re coming this way!”

“What?”

Suddenly, a loud roar rang out, coming from the direction they were supposed to go. A hoard of shadows tore through the streets. They were the same shadows they had seen before, but there were just so _many_.

“We gotta go. Run!” Junpei pushed Fuuka in the opposite direction, hoping to get a head start before they were inevitably spotted.

Another loud roar signaled that it was too late for any sort of stealth mission. The flying shadows finally caught wind to what was going on as well, and soared through the sky, eying their prey.

“Trismegistus!” Junpei summoned his persona in a vain attempt to hold off some of the crowd while they ran.

Flames shot out at the front of the hoard, effectively killing a few of the smaller ones in front. It didn’t seem to slow them down for all but a second, as they piled over and continued charging.

“Look out!” Fuuka motioned to the flying shadows above which had decided to make their first move. They tore into Trismegistus with their claws, sending short ripples of pain throughout Junpei’s body.

“We’re gonna have to find somewhere to hide!” Fuuka pulled Junpei with her.

“I don’t think that’s possible, there’s too many! I can’t fight them all either!” Junpei shouted back over the clamor the mob behind him was making.

“We have to try- ah!” Just as Fuuka spoke, a bird shadow swooped down and tore at her skin, leaving her arm in a bloody state.

“Fuuka!”

Fuuka stumbled to the ground, clutching her injury.

“Sorry, but we gotta move!” Junpei scooped her up in his arms and ran with a new vigor, weaving around the monsters that had finally gotten into lunging distance and keeping a watchful eye on the hell-birds.

“I think I have an idea,” He said, spotting Paulownia Mall up ahead. He quickened his pace to the best of his ability and tore through the pavement trying to reach what he hoped would be a safe haven.

 

“They’re still not back yet!” Minato shouted.

He, Aigis and Koromaru had made it back to the dorm safe and sound, but there was no sign of anyone else yet. It had been at least thirty minutes. What was taking them so long?

“Something went wrong, I know it. We need to go find them,” Minato had been pacing the room the entire time, watching the door. He knew he was getting impatient, but the thought of his own plan going so wrong that his friends could be stranded somewhere, possibly very hurt or half dead only put him on edge.

“I agree, I feel as if our time would be better spent searching for the others. What do you think Koro?” Aigis turned to the dog, who had been waiting at the door as anxiously as Minato.

He barked twice and scratched the door, whimpering.

“He said that he wants to make sure everyone is ok,” Aigis translated.

“He’s right, we should’ve left earlier. Let’s go!” Minato rushed to open the door.

“Wait. I suggest we leave a note, just in case someone comes back after we leave,” Aigis picked up a pen and paper from the living room table and sat to write.

“Alright, just leave it there when you’re finished, we have to go!”

“Understood.”

 

Yukari and Mitsuru burst into the dorm, breathing heavily. It had taken what felt like a century, but the large shadow had finally decided to move away. After that, there weren’t that many more shadows in their way.

“Hey guys, were here!” Yukari called out, not having caught her breath yet. They had sprint to the dorm when it was in sight, not wanting to go the same slow pace they had maintained throughout the walk.

There was no answer.

“Junpei? Minato? Where are you guys?” She called again.

“Has no-one gotten back yet? Mitsuru said aloud.

“I swear guys if this is some joke, it’s not funny!”

Silence coursed through the room with a deathly air.

“Come on, if they haven’t gotten back already, we should look for them,” Yukari pointed back outside.

Mitsuru nodded. They had spent too much time getting back, it was likely that everyone else had arrived and went out looking for them. They left without noticing the note on the table.

 

Junpei rushed around the mall, looking around frantically. With good use of his persona’s fire, he had created a bit of a steam from the fountain, which bought him some time to get away.

His eyes stopped on the arcade.

“Perfect,” He said to himself, rushing to the door and slamming it open with his back.

He slowed down his pace after he heard Fuuka hiss in pain. He had already forgotten she was injured.

He went straight to the back, behind all the arcade machines and hopefully out of sight. Junpei set Fuuka down on the carpet.

“You doing ok?” He asked.

Fuuka nodded miserably. Her arm looked bad, with dark blood dripping from the wound down her hand.

“Here,” Junpei took Fuuka’s arm into his hands.

A bright light shone onto Fuuka’s arm and began closing up the wound.

Fuuka sighed in relief. The pain in her arm diminished and there was only a ghost of a scratch, blood still staining the ripped clothes.

“I found out that I gained Chidori’s ability to heal after she…” Junpei frowned. “Never mind.” A short quiet followed his sentence.

“The shadows are getting closer, but I think there’s less than before. Some of them must’ve ran off,” Fuuka glanced towards the front of the arcade, the shrieking wails of the shadows growing louder.

“Do you think the others are ok?” Fuuka turned to Junpei as she asked.

“I hope so. It’s hard to say, I think that’s the most shadows I’ve ever seen in my life,” Junpei answered.

The pair held their breaths as the scratching footfalls of the shadows explored the flooring in the mall, looking around for any sign of their victims.

“You don’t think they can smell fear, do you?” Junpei’s voice broke as he tried to joke, his fear barely concealed.

“Junpei, your bleeding!” Fuuka exclaimed, ignoring Junpei’s words and looking towards the large gash on the back of his shoulder.

“Oh, its fine. I barely feel it. Keep your voice down,” Junpei whispered back nonchalantly.

Fuuka huffed. “Your hurt, you should heal yourself,” She tried again.

“I’m fine,” Junpei waved his hand, then winced.

Fuuka raised her eyebrow at him. Junpei ignored her, watching the door.

 

“Look, there’s Mitsuru and Yukari!”

Ken’s shout brought Akihiko out of his daze. He followed Ken’s finger down the road.

They had made it to a four-way intersection, still being chased by shadows that would not give up their mission. The longer they ran through the streets, the more shadows accumulated behind them. They should’ve gotten to the dorm in the first place, or at least fought the two shadows from the very beginning.

At the end of the street that clashed with the one they were running on, Ken had spotted two blobs of color in the distance.

The pair made a sharp turn towards the red and pink shapes, calling out to them.

From a distance, it looked as if Yukari and Mitsuru were taking on shadows themselves, though it was hard to distinguish from their position.

Behind him, Akihiko heard Ken yell as he tried to fight a shadow that had caught up with him and grabbed at his jacket.

“That’s it!” The boxer yelled, grabbing his evoker from its holster roughly and sending Caesar to fight.

He was tired of running, it was time to fight their pursuers and catch up to the others.

 

Mitsuru swiped her sword into the shadow’s body, creating a large slash that oozed out thick liquid. The shadow cried out in pain and swiped its own sword at Mitsuru, aiming for her neck. She countered the attack and stabbed the shadow through the chest, killing it.

She and Yukari had been running through the city for some time in a vain attempt to find their friends. The shadows they fought were getting tougher as well, though that was most likely due to fatigue.

They had just finished up the last shadow when Yukari spoke up.

“Look, what’s that?”

Mitsuru turned her head to see what Yukari was talking about, and saw what she meant immediately.

In the distance, at least a mile away, a light shone through the tall windows of a large building. The only lights in the whole city. The light seemed to pulse with life, even from the long distance that much was visible.

“What do you think it is?” Yukari stepped forward and squinted her eyes, trying to get a better look at the building. She didn’t recognize it from where she stood, and she couldn’t imagine what was causing the light.

“I don’t know. Unless… do you think it could be the others?” Mitsuru sheathed her rapier and took a few steps forward, standing next to Yukari.

“We should check it out,” Mitsuru didn’t wait for an answer and began walking forward at a fast pace.

The shadow behind her was faster as it nearly chopped her and Yukari in half with a swing of its sword. It caught their backs and left a thin cut along their hipbones.

Mitsuru leapt back in surprise. _The thing must’ve crept up behind us while we were distracted_ , she thought bitterly.

“I think we should retreat!” Yukari called to her.

Both girls knew they were at their limits, having summoned their Personas too many times. Yukari would run out of arrows eventually, especially if they stopped to fight every shadow they saw.

They didn’t hear the calls of Akihiko and Ken as they rushed down the street to the light.

 

“Have they gone yet?”

“A few of them left but I think they know we’re here. We might have to fight them to get out of here, unless you know another way out.”

Junpei sighed, resting his head against one of the arcade machines.

“I don’t think we have any other choice. Besides I don’t want to wait here any longer-” Junpei was cut off by the front door opening and the sickening sounds of a shadow crawling on the ground, drooling and snarling as it searched the building.

“Since when can shadows open doors?” Junpei whisper-shouted to Fuuka, wide eyed.

“We need to go before we’re spotted in here. If there’s only one exit, we’ll get cornered,” Fuuka got to her knees and peeked around the corner.

“I feel it on the right side, we should try to go around.”

The duo crawled on the carpeted ground towards the front exit, holding their breaths.

The faint rustling sounds moved around the room with the heavy panting and quiet growls of the shadow giving the room some sound.

They were within sight of the door when Fuuka felt it. Though she didn’t have Juno summoned, it was as if there was some strange alarm that sounded in her head. They were spotted. She looked to her right and saw the shadow on top of the claw machine, teeth bared and ready to pounce. Junpei hadn’t noticed it yet.

“Look out Junpei!” Fuuka leapt on him and shoved him to the ground as the shadow jumped from the machine. It landed right on her and dug its teeth into her side.

Fuuka let out an awful scream as the needle-like teeth tore through her skin.

Junpei got up from the ground and threw the shadow off of the small girl before picking her up once again.

“The train has left the station!” He shouted, carrying her through the door outside the arcade.

Other shadows heard the commotion and began crawling towards the teens as they took off into the night once again.

 

The wind blew through Aigis’ hair softly as she took in her dark surroundings. She, Minato and Koromaru had climbed up onto the top of a building to get a better view of the city. It was a bit hard to get Koromaru up there in the first place, seeing as it was difficult for the poor dog to climb up the fire escape, but they managed.

Aigis stood on the opposite side of the building from Minato, while Koromaru walked around all sides of it, stopping to sniff the air occasionally.

On her side Aigis had a great view of Paulownia Mall. Although it looked dark and eerie, it still held its cheery atmosphere.

“What do you think that is?”

Minato’s voice broke Aigis out of her trance. The robot turned her head, looking in Minato’s direction.

“See that?” Minato asked again, this time pointing down to a large building very far down the road.

The buildings lights were on and the light almost seemed alive, pulsing like the slow, rhythmic banging of a drum.

“It appears to be a light. However, that can’t be possible, since it is currently-”

“The Dark Hour, yeah,” Minato finished.

The two kept silent for a moment, watching the light as it flickered in the distance.

“Do you think we should go to it?”

“It would be logical to go. That place seems to be a point of interest. The others might be there.”

“Unless it’s some kind of trap or some weird second shadow nest or something.”

“Perhaps…”

A loud series of barks interrupted their conversation. Koromaru was at the edge of the building, barking furiously in the direction of Paulownia Mall.

A huge fire show was going down in front of the mall. From their position on top of the building, a clear visual of a large army of shadow was visible, and what looked to be two figures dashing around in front, trying to get away from the chaos. 

Koromaru continued his loud rant, wagging his tail and looking to his current caretakers as to say, “Look! Look at the people!”

“We should put the building on hold for now. Come on, let’s go,” Minato began climbing down the fire escape with Aigis following closely behind, carrying the loud dog under one arm.

 

Blinded and choking on the thick smoke from Trismegistus’ fire, Junpei drug his injured friend through the streets, blasting at shadows the minute they appeared. It was getting exhausting; Junpei felt like he would pass out at any minute.

He knew that Fuuka was worse off, having taken that bite for him and still a bit weak from her arm injury, even if he had healed it. Smoke probably wasn’t the best thing to put the small girl through at the moment, but did he have a choice?

He had taken some bad hits himself, trying to keep Fuuka from injury. That wasn’t even counting all the cruelty his Persona had taken, especially when a few of the demon bird shadows showed up.

All in all, adding his and Fuuka’s injuries together mixed with exhaustion equaled death in his mind. Unless the rest of the group could find them, then he might as well kiss his ass goodbye.

“Alright Fuuka, I’m gonna pick you up again!”

With a swift motion, Fuuka was in his arms, coughing hard from all the dark smoke polluting the air.

With one less thing to keep an eye on, Junpei began running full force away from the snarling crowd of shadows, ducking and weaving his way around them.

He took off away from the mall, turning down a street and loosing most of the shadows that were too disoriented to follow. He watched his back as he ran, asking Fuuka to keep her eyes forward to make sure he didn’t run into anything or tell him if any shadows came from ahead.

“Junpei… I see a light,” Fuuka said, weakly clinging onto him as he carried her away from danger. Junpei nearly froze up after she spoke, almost getting clobbered by a shadow if it weren’t for a quick swing of his sword.

As he kept moving, he answered back, “You see _what_? Fuuka, listen to me: do _not_ go towards the light. Stay away from the light!” It was clear Junpei was becoming increasingly more stressed out as a smaller but still large group of shadows rounded the corner and ran full force at him.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Fuuka coughed out as Trismegistus appeared and let out another fire storm, sending smoke and debris flying. “Over there!” She pointed this time, directing the teen’s attention

There was a large building in front of him, emitting some strange light.

“I think I detect the others near it! We should head there!”

“Alright, hold on a little longer!”

 

Yukari and Mitsuru stepped into the building slowly, first cracking the front door open to peek in, then stepping in fully, weapons drawn.

“Aigis? Ken? Akihiko?” Yukari whispered, looking around the large room.

There were cobwebs and dust caking the walls and floor of the single room. It would have been empty if it weren’t for the glaring inconsistency that sat in the middle of the room.

A huge bang behind the girls made them jump with fright.

Quickly brandishing their weapons and aiming for the door they just entered, they took an attack stance and yanked their evokers out.

It was Akihiko and Ken, who shut the tall door just as quickly as the girls had readied themselves to fight.

“Akihiko! Ken! You guys are ok!” Yukari lowered her bow and placed her evoker back to her thigh holster, sighing with relief.

Akihiko and Ken, although tired, also managed a small smile. It faded off their faces as soon as they caught view of the monstrosity behind the girls.

“What… is that.”

 

Feet pounding on the concrete, Junpei was almost flying down the street with determination. The shadows behind him crawled in a frenzy over each other, hungry to get their claws on the two.

“We’re almost there-!” Just as he shouted, Junpei’s foot caught on the road, sending him tumbling to the ground and Fuuka out of his arms.

With another opportunity to strike, a large shadow at the front of the pack charged forward at Fuuka, jumping in the air with intentions to crush his prey.

Cowering on the ground, Fuuka scrunched herself up and hoped that it would be quick. A loud crack sounded through the air and a crunching sound followed it.

Fuuka blinked, not fully comprehending what had happened.

Juno surrounded her, with her in the large glass bowl part of her Persona and the large shadow on the ground in front of it.

Her Persona had come out on its own in a last-ditch effort to protect her user, even if it couldn’t fight. Instead of Juno having her arms raised towards the sky like usual, the Persona’s hands were raised in front of itself, balled into fists. As the shadow stood back on its feet, Juno punched the creature directly in the face, sending it crashing to the ground.

A few feet away, two shadows were crawling on Junpei, with the teen struggling on the bottom of the pile.

He grunted as the shadows clawed at him and came close to biting his head off at least twice. He managed to throw one off before the other one finally pinned him down, mouth drooling and what looked like a ghost of a smile, if shadows could even smile. All the same, Junpei got a ‘I finally beat you’ vibe to it, and he was too tired to help himself.

He didn’t see the large hand wrap itself around the shadow’s neck. He didn’t notice, of course, until his attacker was thrown off of him.

Junpei looked up in confusion, wondering who in the world could have thrown that shadow off him. His jaw dropped in awe as Juno presented itself, wrestling with another shadow.

This shadow was another different one, almost identical to a centipede with a pair of sharp pincers on the front of its face and a tough looking shell covering it’s back.

The pincers were trying to clasp around the neck of Juno, who in turn was trying to break the pincers off of the shadow’s face.

“Persona!”

Junpei sat up straight, looking in the direction of the new voice.

Aigis fell to the ground with Athena trailing behind her, stabbing the many shadows until they were in pieces.

Minato and Koromaru followed next, Thor and Cerberus sending lighting and fire in the direction of the shadows while also making their way to their hurt friends.

“Persona,” Junpei raised his evoker to his head, determined not to be seen as some weakling in this situation, especially by the shadows. Even though he couldn’t prove it, Junpei swore they had some weird hive-mind going on. That would explain how more shadows had shown up in the first place, back when they left the store and tried to sneak away.

Trismegistus stood near Juno, burning the bottom half of the centipede shadow to help kill it.

With the additional help, the last shadows were taken out quick, and the reunion was short and sweet.

“Thank goodness you came! We were almost done for,” Fuuka had troubling breathing, but the sight of her friends brought a smile on her face.

“I am glad we got to you in time. We’ve been looking for the others for approximately twenty minutes. It is unfortunate we could not locate you sooner,” Aigis helped Fuuka off the ground, Juno having left in a flash of light, seeing her job as a protector finished.

Minato grabbed Junpei by the arm, pulling him up and keeping him steady when he almost fell over.

“Thanks… man,” Junpei took a deep breath between words, dead on his feet but still conscious, somehow.

Koromaru ran to Fuuka first, jumping up on her and wagging his tail with such a force that it could’ve knocked a small child down.

“Hey Koro! I missed you too!” Fuuka patted his head before the small dog ran to Junpei to give him the same overjoyed greeting.

“We should find the others and make sure they’re ok. You guys need healing too,” Minato said, looking at Junpei first and then Fuuka.

“We were trying to get to the others before. Fuuka said that she thought they were over there,” Junpei extended his hand to a large building. The same building that they had seen before, with the weird light.

“Can you tell who’s there?” Minato asked.

Fuuka nodded, saying, “Yukari and Mitsuru were the only ones there before, but I think Ken and Akihiko are there now.”

“Great, that’s everyone. Plus, we get to see where that lights coming from. Let’s go,” Minato gestured to everyone and they set off, close enough to the building to be able to see a large door. Minato carried a protesting Junpei while Aigis held Fuuka up by the waist, who was giggling at the teen struggling in Minato’s arms, despite the poor shape they were in.

Reaching the door, Aigis swung it wide open and walked in, the others following and Minato finally setting Junpei down and receiving a weak punch on the shoulder.

Inside, the building was empty, save for their companions, who were all too glad to finally reach each other and-

“What the hell is that thing?” Junpei exclaimed, looking at the giant sack in the middle of the room.

The sack hung ominously by some weird tube that descended from the ceiling, with a strange oozing coating on the outside. The strange object periodically twitched, like muscle spasm or something to that effect. It was a strange color, though that could’ve just been the light that was coming from inside of it.

“It’s disgusting is what it is,” Junpei answered his own question when no-one else spoke, he could only imagine because no-one had an answer.

“Never mind that thing, we’ll get to that later. The better question is, what happened to you guys?” Yukari marched over to Fuuka, looking her over with a mixture of worry and anger.

“I don’t know, man. It happened after Akihiko and Ken left. We were about to leave when this huge group of shadows just tore through the street. We had to hide out in Paulownia Mall because we couldn’t get ‘em off our tails. Even after all that we still got caught. But-” Junpei paused. “You guys should have seen it. It was the coolest damn thing. Fuuka’s Persona summoned itself to protect Fuuka. Juno was beating the shadows down with her fists. It was epic!”

Even halfway dead, Junpei was still bubbling with energy that neither Minato or Fuuka were sure where it arose from as he retold the events. Yukari had summoned her Persona along with Ken, and they both used Diarma on the new arrivals. Their gashes closed up and a refreshing feeling overtook them.

Akihiko seemed impressed at first, clapping Fuuka on the back and saying, “I knew your Persona had a fighting spirit!” Everyone’s momentary joy and excitement was cut off by Mitsuru.

“We still have a problem,” she said.

At that, everyone stopped and looked at the disgusting bag in the room, which was now starting to leak even more of the thick liquid.

“Do we have any ideas?” Mitsuru asked.

“I dunno, it kinda looks like some weird tumor or somethin’,” Junpei raised the brim of his cap, which he had surprisingly been able to hold onto for so long, and stared at the strange thing.

“I get more of an alien vibe,” Minato added.

“Knock it off you two,” Yukari smacked both of their shoulder and rolled her eyes.

“It looks like a human stomach to me,” Aigis said, tilting her head. S.E.E.S paused for a moment, taking in the sight.

“It does look like a stomach,” Akihiko spoke up next, squinting his eyes like he was trying to compare the likeness of both objects in his head.

“I see it too. It has the same shape and there’s even two tubes on it,” Ken pointed to each part of the sack, which was beginning to become more akin to a stomach in the minds of everyone there.

“But why is it here? How is it here?” Yukari asked aloud, which sent a quiet through the group.

Mitsuru tapped her foot on the ground in thought. Perhaps it was a sort of life force for the shadows. This thing hadn’t even existed before the Dark Hour made its sudden change, so maybe it was connected to that?

“Whatever it is, it looks shadow enough to me. I say we kill it,” Akihiko pulled his evoker out and pressed it to his forehead.

With no other options (no other ideas, really), each member pulled their own evokers out. The thing was huge, but they had taken on the strong shadows during the full moons. They could take this thing down as long as they stayed vigilant.

“Yamagishi, be prepared!” Mitsuru called back to Fuuka, who was fumbling with her own evoker.

“Ready!” Fuuka called back, summoning Juno who had gone back to her usual stance, palms facing towards the ceiling and back tilted.

Aigis went ahead first, calling Athena who shot forward and made a huge gash in the stomach.

Almost immediately after Athena opened it, thick liquid splashed out from the inside, spilling out and rushing towards S.E.E.S like a flood.

Behind them, Fuuka shrieked. “Yamagishi what is it?” Mitsuru and the others ran back away from the ooze, which thankfully slowed down after the initial first break.

“That thing… That thing is the shadow!” Fuuka pointed to the ooze, which crawled its way towards the team, despite not having legs.

“As soon as it broke out, this feeling washed over me. I felt cold and I could feel what it was thinking. That shadow is hungry for blood. I-I’ll be fine, just be careful!” Fuuka calmed down, trying to concentrate. “It doesn’t have any weaknesses or resistances. Just try to attack it!”

After being given the signal, Ken and Kala-Nemi shot forward, hoping to get a quick first hit in.

Mitsuru stayed back a moment, eying up the shadow. The light was dull now, not pulsing anymore. It was as if the shadow was in some sort of stasis or pupae, and their attack had made it come out undeveloped. As for the shell the ooze came out of, what torn bits were left from Athena’s attack were melting away.

Mitsuru was snapped back out of her thoughts when she heard Ken cry out.

Kala-Nemi was trapped in the ooze, which acted like a very thick honey if she had to compare it to something. As the Persona struggled in the goo, it only stuck deeper before what she assumed was the ooze crushing the Persona until it disappeared, making Ken writhe in pain.

“Ziodyne!” Akihiko and Caesar tried next, casting a strong electric attack that coursed through the shadow.

The shadow wasn’t fazed at all. It kept inching forward, making its way closer to everyone.

“Blade of Fury!” Trismegistus stood up to the challenge next, striking the shadow twice. The same thing happened to it as had happened to Kala-Nemi.

On the second hit, the shadow collected its weight and grabbed one of Trismegistus’ wings, pulling him down and simultaneously crushing it out of existence.

“Are you sure about the resistance thing, Fuuka?” Junpei called back, a grimace on his face from the pain. “Because none of our attacks seem to be working!”

“I’m not sure, everything is getting hazy,” Fuuka was leaning on the glass bowl of her Persona, unable to stand up straight. She was getting tired.

It was true for everyone of S.E.E.S, they had been out for several hours and had been fighting non-stop, something they weren’t used to. The excessive Persona summoning and attacks had made it worse, even if they were healed.

“Koromaru!”

Ken and Koromaru were right up against the blob, with the small dog stuck in the shadow.

Koromaru had tried to run up and attack it with his knife, only to get his front paws stuck. Ken was pulling on him, trying to get him away.

The more the pair struggled, the more the shadow fought back against them until Ken’s hands were stuck in the sludge. Koromaru was barely visible by the time Aigis ran over to try to pull them free.

Ken began to panic when Koromaru’s upset protests were cut off as his head sunk in. It only took a few more moments before the dog was completely gone. Ken was stuck up to his elbows, with Aigis trying her hardest to pull the kid out.

With another sudden movement, the shadow shifted its weight and consumed Ken in one motion. Aigis backed up in surprise, silent and wide-eyed.

On the other side, Yukari shot a few arrows into the beast. As each one struck, they simply stuck in and were quietly absorbed. Nothing was working.

The shadow only seemed to grow in size with everything it consumed, from attacks to the furniture in the building to the actual bodies of S.E.E.S.

It took everything everyone had to try to fight back. It was almost unbelievable how quickly they had lost two members. They didn’t have enough time to help either.

Mitsuru tried next, sending Artemisia to use Bufudyne to try to freeze the enemy.

With a flick of her whip, Artemisia sent a hail of ice shards, pummeling the shadow.

Relief washed over the group when the last shard hit and the entire shadow was encased in ice, stopping it from moving further.

“Try to attack it now!” Mitsuru called out to the rest.

“Jack Frost!”

“Caesar!”

“Isis!”

“Trismegistus!”

“Athena!”

“Artemisia!”

Athena stabbed the shadow, cracking some of the ice that incased it, but the shadow seemed to slightly recoil on the inside. Artemisia and Jack Frost tried an ice attack once more, since it seemed to do the best against their opponent. Isis created a tornado of wind that sent the shadow back a few meters and slashed into it past the ice. Caesar and Trismegistus sent their respective elemental attacks, electricity and fire, into the shadow, which cracked and melted the ice trap away. However, the shadow was definitely weaker and slower after the outburst.

“Nice work everyone! Keep going, you’ve weakened it!” Fuuka called out behind them.

“Let’s keep up the pressure!” Akihiko was getting pumped up and lunged forward to give the blob his best punch.

_Shlurp_.

His right fist was stuck in the shadow, making a wet sticking sound as it sunk in.

“…Shit. Shit. _Shit_.”

The older teen tried retracting his hand, quickly realizing his mistake. It was a lost cause. Even with the help of Aigis and Yukari this time, he slowly sunk in. It was at a slower pace than before, most likely due to the previous attacks.

“Get back, guys!” Akihiko shoved both girls back as the slime crawled further up his arm.

Aigis took a few steps back after the shove, but Yukari tumbled to the ground, not expecting the push. No one could have guessed what happened next.

It was as if the shadow could see where everyone was, or maybe it could smell them, but it didn’t have any eyes or a nose as far as they could tell. Then again, it wasn’t as if they were looking for anything like that.

What looked like some sort of appendage separated from the body of the slime. It had an undefined shape to it and was best compared to look like a flabby stick. Whatever it was, it shot out from the bottom of the shadow and grabbed Yukari by the ankle, sucking her in as soon as she hit the ground. She didn’t have enough time to react. Junpei didn’t either.

He had been on the other side with Mitsuru and Minato, trying to spot a weak point or something to hit that wouldn’t suck him in like the others. In the end, he got too close.

It was almost like an ocean wave, the way the surface of the shadow grew and toppled over him. He let out a scream that cut off after he was covered.

Akihiko was out of sight now, only leaving Fuuka, Aigis, Minato and Mitsuru.

The ice attacks didn’t have a high chance of freezing the enemy, so they would need a lot of luck to do it again. Even if they did succeed in freezing it again, what would they do? Fuuka said that it had gotten weaker, but the shadow looked like it had its energy back, continuing its mission to consume everything in its path. Their attacks did nothing, only briefly slowing it down at one point.

“The shadow’s left side seems to be having a reaction,” Aigis’ voice interrupted everyone’s thoughts. Their attention was turned to the indicated side with curious expressions.

There were chunks of ice sitting in small pools of water on the side of the shadow. Every time the shadow tried to spread its weight as it grew larger, it would recoil after touching the water. After a few more attempts, the shadow seemed to be burning almost, with some sort of weird steam or smoke coming off of the shadow and a foul smell filling the air.

“Water,” Fuuka said, completely dumbfounded. “It’s weak to water.”

“None of us have water attacks though,” Minato said next. “Even if we were to use Jack Frost and Artemisia to make ice and then use Orpheus’ fire to melt it, it would take a very long time.”

“Do we have any other choice?” Mitsuru asked.

They didn’t have much time to think; the shadow would soon be upon them again. It seemed to move faster now, perhaps confident that it would win.

“Wait!” Fuuka stopped them before they summoned their Personas. “The ocean! If we can get it in the ocean, it would die, right?”

The plan was well received with the group, much preferring the idea of using natural water rather than creating their own.

“How are we going to get it in the ocean? We’re in a warehouse or something,” Minato pointed out.

“The shadow has not grown to a substantial size just yet. I believe if we can freeze the shadow and quickly use our Personas to carry it out and toss it in, we will be victorious,” Hearing Aigis agree with the plan was comforting at the very least. If they had an intelligent robot on their side about it, there would be a good chance of it succeeding.

“I hope were lucky enough to freeze it again,” Mitsuru faced the shadow, evoker to her head, beyond determined now, her heart filled with vengeance for her fallen comrades.

The other two followed suit, with Fuuka dismissing Juno as to make sure she didn’t get in their way.

Artemisia went first using Bufudyne while Jack Frost cast Bufu.

Aigis summoned Athena and ran to the large doors, getting ready to move the shadow as planned.

The shadow slightly recoiled from the attacks but kept moving forward.

“Mitsuru, just use Bufu, it’ll take less out of you,” Minato told Mitsuru, calling Jack Frost again to try once more.

By the ninth attack, they were very tired, even if the attacks were weak. Mitsuru tried again, praying that it would work this time, lest she collapse on the floor from exhaustion.

Artemisia was visibly tired, if that was possible, but managed another attack, which struck the shadow.

With a satisfying cracking sound, ice surrounded the shadow, and Aigis and Minato spent no time getting Orpheus and Athena to pick up the shadow and rush it out, hefting it into the ocean.

It took a few more moments for the Personas to push the shadow into the deeper water, what with its size, but they managed. The water washed over the shadow as it sunk in the deep.

The ice melted quickly, sinking in warm water, before the shadow broke out and threw a fit. It was thrashing and bubbling and the three Persona-users who could actually smell had to cover their noses from the stench.

Clouds of strangely colored smoke rose from the water as the stomach creature shrunk down, sinking deep in the water and disintegrating, leaving it as strange of a color as the smoke it produced.

Gradually, the sound of raging and frothing water ceased, leaving the quiet sound of deep breathing.

“We did it,” Minato breathed, dropping to his knees and dropping his sword on the ground next to him.

“But at what cost…” The others wouldn’t have heard Mitsuru if it weren’t so silent.

Silent tears fell. Half of their team, gone with just one shadow. After everything they had been through together, the whole year and all of the full moon shadows they had fought, only to be bested by some fluke, some strange shadow that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

Fuuka choked out a sob and covered her face with her hands, leaning into Mitsuru.

Aigis looked somberly at the ocean, wishing she could have done more.

Minato looked empty, felt empty. He _was_ empty. Five of his best friends had died. He was in shock.

When something splashed in the water, Fuuka fell backwards in pure fear, eyes wide. The others gasped and looked up, thinking the shadow had come back.

Yukari swam out of the water, crawling up on the bank and coughing her lungs out.

Koromaru and Ken surfaced next, the younger boy holding the dog by his collar and helping him paddle to the shore.

Lastly, Akihiko and Junpei broke free out of the water, gulping down air and the younger boy clutching his hat in one hand, and the older boy’s shoulder in the other.

The four stood still as everyone made it to land, coughing and hacking up water, Ken throwing up and Koromaru falling over. Akihiko tripped on his way up, clearly disoriented, and accidently brought Junpei down with him.

Yukari laid still on the sand, breathing heavy and looking at the sky, not moving an inch.

Fuuka was first to move, sobbing with happiness she didn’t know she had in her and running up to give everyone a hug. Mitsuru followed, with Aigis hesitating and following her lead. Minato couldn’t move.

He watched all his friends in disbelief, Mitsuru nearly tackling Akihiko as he stood up and knocking a tired Junpei over once again, Fuuka pressing up against Yukari’s back and Aigis patting Koromaru and Ken before going to help Junpei up again.

Minato started laughing. He chuckled at first quiet and reserved, not drawing attention to himself, until he buckled over, tears flooding his eyes in happiness and hands clutching his stomach as he pressed his forehead into the road, eyes clenched and laughing like a maniac.


	3. Chapter 3

After resting on the shore side long enough for the shivering and soaking wet friends to finally catch their breath, the group finally hooked arms and trudged home.

Opening the pair of doors to the dorm, Fuuka rushed to the closet to get some towels and blankets as to ensure none of them became sick. Minato, Mitsuru and Aigis set everyone in a chair, with Aigis marching upstairs to grab pillows, determined to make her friends as comfortable as possible.

They had been lucky to not have inhaled enough water to hurt themselves to the point of needing CPR, but they acted dead on their feet, barely having enough energy to move themselves. It was true that everyone was beat, having spent the day and the better of the night (or however that worked, considering that the Dark Hour had no visible end) fighting, but there was something more to the way they acted. Or how they didn’t act.

Mitsuru left the room to find something in the kitchen, seeing how they hadn’t eaten for so long, leaving Minato in the room with his zombie-like companions.

He didn’t like the silence. It was hard for him to sit there with his friends, not knowing what to say. He usually did a lot better in social situations like these, but he was having trouble coming up with something comforting to tell them.

He fidgeted in his seat for a moment, before coming up with a solution. He unplugged his headphones and lowered his volume, letting the music from his mp3 player fill the room. Yukari shifted a bit in her seat after the first few notes played, removing her hands from her stomach and sitting up. Koromaru’s ears flickered on his head, but he made no other movement as he lay on the floor.

Fuuka walked down the stairs at a slow pace, holding a tall pile of blankets and towels. Aigis followed her with a neat stack of pillows in her arms.

Minutes passed. Mitsuru left the kitchen with some food and Aigis ensured that everyone was adequately wrapped in a blanket, even forcefully taking off Akihiko’s vest and Junpei’s and Ken’s jackets.

Koromaru got up, snuggling up to Junpei and Akihiko on the couch with his tongue hanging out. The dog seemed happy, letting out a small bark as he laid against the teens for warmth.

“Are you all alright?”

It felt odd to ask and Fuuka immediately regretted it, but the way everyone was acted bothered her. She needed someone to talk, _anyone_.

“Yeah, I think so,” She hadn’t been expecting a quick response, no less from Akihiko, who seemed worse than the others.

The four hadn’t brought up the obvious issue on the beach. They assumed that the others would tell them what it was.

After surfacing and collapsing on the beach, it became evident that something had happened while they were in the shadow. They were covered in red marks and patches of Koromaru’s fur were missing. They had open wounds that stung with salt water and something else, but none of them knew what.

“You know how we compared that shadow to a stomach?” Yukari spoke up next, her voice slightly muffled by the towel wrapped around her head and shoulders.

They nodded in response.

“I don’t think we’ll be that accurate ever again.”

The ominous words sent a chill down everyone’s spine.

“Could you elaborate? What happened in the shadow? What are those marks on your skin?” Mitsuru pushed further.

“After the shadow grabbed us,” Ken started. “I was stuck in this weird bubble thing. It was really dark, I couldn’t see anything.”

Akihiko nodded along to Ken’s story, silently giving his own opinion in the gesture.

“It was really damp and disgusting inside it. There was this weird liquid in there that covered the inside of where I was. When some of it dripped on me…” Ken trailed off, staring at a large red mark on his arm. It was self-explanatory.

“It was like acid. Like how an actual stomach digests its food. I could feel it through my clothes. It was tearing me open,” Junpei didn’t look at them as he added in his own recount of the events.

“That sounds terrible,” Minato said. It sounded lackluster, but he didn’t have any words. The shadows they fought in the past had been brutal, sure, but this was different. Most of the shadows they were used to just tried to stab the S.E.E.S members with their sword or whatever, but these new shadows were sadistic, using their teeth and claws. It was as if they wanted to kill them in the most painful ways possible.

“In any case, I don’t think it’s best to dwell on it. We’ve all been through a lot tonight, I think we should all eat something and go to bed. After all that happened, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you slept in, either,” Mitsuru stood up from her seat and nodded to the group. “Just make sure to get some rest.”

Mitsuru was tense as she walked up the stairs, tired eyes watching her. No-one was ok after what had happened, and Minato knew Mitsuru well enough to be able to tell that she would stay up late at night thinking over what happened. All of them would.

Over the next hour, the teens slowly ate and trickled their way back to their rooms, going slow and not saying much. Aigis was the last one in the room, wanting to make sure that everyone else went to bed before her and keeping an eye on them all.

According to her internal clock, it was three in the morning when Aigis finally retreated to her room. The nightmares that followed each person kept them awake for most of the night.

 

Yukari woke up, not pleased with the amount of sleep she got. She almost rolled over again to fall back asleep, until she remembered. It was hard getting used to the Dark Hour not ending, even if they did go outside in it a few times already.

Even though she remembered Mitsuru saying it was okay to sleep for longer, Yukari didn’t feel comfortable with being alone with her thoughts. Especially after some of the choice nightmares she was tormented with during the night.

Begrudgingly, she dressed out of her pajamas and walked downstairs. After all, she wouldn’t be of any use in bed. She was shocked to find most of her teammates downstairs already.

They didn’t notice her at first, more absorbed in whatever conversation they were in. Mitsuru and Minato were talking at the table in the living room, about what seemed to be something important. She heard the voices of Junpei and Akihiko in the kitchen and headed there.

The rest of the team greeted her as she walked in.

“Good morning, I guess?” Fuuka asked, momentarily glancing outside. “Are you hungry?”

“Sure, what’ve we got? We can’t cook anything,” Yukari looked at the stove as she talked.

“We were just talking about that actually. We’re thinking about running out to get some supplies real quick. Maybe some fruit and water bottles. We ran out of water already, so that’s already really important. We can eat cereal right now, but we don’t have any cold milk,” Akihiko answered.

“Wait, wouldn’t we be stealing from the stores if we did that?” Yukari said, crossing her arms.

“I mean technically yes, but we are also saving the world, right? I don’t think the coffins in the street would mind of we took a little food, yeah?” Junpei spoke up behind her, waving his hand dismissively. There were dark circles under his eyes. On closer inspection, there were dark circles under everyone’s eyes, but no-one seemed to want to draw attention to it. Yukari wondered how she looked.

“Of course you’d say that, Stupei. I bet this was your idea,” She rolled her eyes at Junpei’s mock offended gesture. “Anyways, what are those two talking about?”

Yukari pointed out into the living room to Minato and Mitsuru, who were still heatedly talking about something.

“They’re debating about whether to take weapons from Officer Kurosawa. We buy from him and seeing as we lost more than half of our team’s weapons to the ocean just yesterday, we need to restock. The only problem is that we would be taking things from a policeman. Mitsuru was flexible about the food because we’d die if we didn’t get anything, but the last thing she wants is an angry officer on her hands, since he knows about what we do,” Akihiko explained.

“Minato says we can just leave money there and take the weapons, and I agree, but I also get what Mitsuru says too. She would be blamed if everything turns normal,” Ken spoke up next, chomping down on an apple.

“ _When_ ,” Akihiko cut in. “ _When_ everything turns normal. We can fix this, maybe we just have to fight a few more shadows. I’m sure we can find the answer.”

The intrusion of two pairs of footsteps stopped the conversation.

“We’ve come to an agreement. We will get more weapons, and we will leave the money there. I suppose it’s for the best anyways, seeing as these shadows are much more vicious than the ones we fought before. You all will vouch for me when he singles me out though, right?” Mitsuru asked in a joking tone.

Everyone nodded their heads.

“We got bad news, though. We have too many things to do right now so were gonna have to split up again. I know that worked out badly last time but we’ve decided to do only two groups this time. We have some temporary weapons here you can take with you,” Minato said.

“We already have a plan. Akihiko, Yukari, Fuuka, Ken and Junpei will go down to the store and pick up some things, then go to the police station to get the weapons. Minato, Aigis, Koromaru and I will stay here. We need to take stock of everything we already have. Does everyone agree to this plan?”

Everyone looked at each other in silence.

“Excellent. Get ready, we meet at the front door in half an hour.”

 

Equipped with an old spear, a short sword, some regular boxing gloves and a shoddy bow, the team walked down the street.

The store wasn’t far, but the police station was. They would take two trips. First and foremost was the food.

That trip went smoothly, with the group carrying large bags back full of water cases and fresh food. Not a shadow was in sight, or nearby according to Fuuka.

When they got back, the others were in Aigis’ room, helping her to reload her guns and trying to find a way to bring more bullets with her when they would go out again, just in case. They had restocked and not found much, due to it all mostly being in the refrigerator or freezer. Mostly snack foods were available, which is what the first group returned with in abundance.

They left again, more confident this time, though Junpei and Fuuka were more hesitant to go, since they had bad memories of the area. The wave of shadows had been horrifying, Junpei couldn’t stop talking about how much it was like a recent horror movie he had seen.

There was only one shadow wandering around outside the station. It was different from what they had seen before. It was very tall, with a large sword and shiny armor. A helmet covered its small head and an ugly design painted its skin, if you could even call it a design, it looked more like a two-year-old had been let loose with a bucket full of paint according to Junpei.

They snuck up on the tall thing, keeping out of its sight. For such a fearsome looking shadow, it wasn’t too bright.

Yukari and Fuuka hung back as the guys went ahead.

“We should try to sneak into the station first and get the better weapons,” Akihiko whispered to the other two.

“He’s standing right in front of the door; how can we get past him?” Ken whispered back.

“He doesn’t seem that smart, do you think he’d fall for a distraction?” Junpei asked. “That could get us enough time to get in and out.”

“Good idea. I’ll distract him, you two head in. Ready?” The three tensed up.

“Now!” Akihiko took off to the front of the shadow, waving his arms. “Hey, you big ugly brute! Fight me!”

Junpei and Ken waited a moment as the shadow took a few steps away from the front.

“Go!” Junpei nudged Ken forward and sped walked to the door, holding it open slightly.

The shadow hadn’t noticed them yet. He and Ken crept in and ran to the counter. Junpei slammed the money on the tabletop and grabbed the best things he saw. A sword for him, a much better bow, a pair of gloves and a spear. Ken gripped a small knife in his hand.

“Don’t forget Koromaru!”

Just like that, they were out. Junpei threw the bow to Yukari and handed the spear to Ken. He rushed over to the side and threw away his crappy baseball bat.

“Akihiko!” Junpei tossed the gloves to the upper classman.

Akihiko jumped and caught them, narrowly avoiding another blow.

“We should run, this thing is too strong!” Akihiko ran up to Junpei and pushed him away from the battle.

“We can’t take him? There’s only one this time!” Junpei gripped his sword tighter, glaring at the monster behind Akihiko. The dumb thing raised its sword slowly, slightly tilting to the side with the weight of the weapon. It moved like it was in a pool of molasses.

“We need to regroup back at the dorm. We already got what we came for,” Akihiko motioned back to the police station. “Let’s move!”

A shrill voice cried out from behind them, taking their attention away from the huge shadow in front of them. There were another two shadows that had crawled up behind Yukari and Fuuka. One shadow grappled with Yukari as she tried to shoot a close-range arrow at it while Fuuka backed away from the other, trying to stay out of its reach.

Akihiko rushed forward at the shadow closest to Fuuka, striking it in between its eyes and shoving it down the ground.

Ken stabbed the shadow that had managed to get the bow out of Yukari’s hands, giving Yukari enough of a distraction to simply take an arrow and plunge it directly into the shadow’s head.  The dead weight slumped over and evaporated in her hands.

Junpei kept a quick pace as he jogged over to his friends, momentarily forgetting the big guy behind them.

“Let’s go, we have what we need,” Akihiko spoke up, nudging Fuuka in front of him. He looked at everyone as he crossed off a mental checklist in his mind. His eyes widened when they reached Junpei.

Said teen was currently running towards him, with the humongous shadow looming behind him, sword raised above its head and ready to smash Junpei into the pavement.

“Junpei, look out!” Akihiko sprinted toward Junpei, slamming into him out of reach of the sword.

Akihiko was not so lucky.

He had gotten Junpei out of harm’s way, but in his attempt, the flat part of the sword crushed his wrist with the pure force of the attack.

No-one there had ever heard Akihiko scream so loudly in pain.

“Akihiko!” Junpei sat stunned before dragging Akihiko with him onto the sidewalk. Yukari and Ken summoned their personas; Ken to heal Akihiko and Yukari to try to weaken the shadow. They were immediately defeated as the beast took a wide swing with its sword and sliced clean through the Personas before their humans could even give a command.

The pair were shaking on their feet from the attack as they took large steps away from the shadow.

“It’s weak to lightning!” Fuuka shouted from the back of the group.

The monster amid their group took a ponderous step towards Yukari and Ken, who had backed up near Fuuka. The thing stopped halfway, looking back at the two teens on the sidewalk.

Ultimately, it came to the conclusion that the prone figure on the ground drove it more than the small figures in front of it, and turned towards it new targets.

“Shit, c’mon,” Junpei tugged at his evoker as he panicked to himself, Akihiko doing the same from the ground with his good hand.

Trismegistus rammed into the shadow as it slowly made its way to them, knocking it on its side. Caesar unleashed a strong Ziodyne attack that tore through the shadow’s armor.

“There’s more shadows coming on your side!” Fuuka called out, pointing down the road. Sure enough, two more of the weird centipede shadows were scurrying along the street, brought forth by the commotion.

“Dammit,” Junpei muttered, backing up to the police station with Akihiko.

They were surrounded, with the large shadow already getting up from the hits and the centipedes blocking the other side with their long, armored bodies.

“Get the others!” Akihiko shouted suddenly, looking straight at Yukari. “We can try to hold them off, but we need backup! We’ll be fine, go!”

Yukari hesitated, clearly not trusting his words. The last thing she wanted to do was to leave them behind like this, especially after the last split up that had gone so wrong. The events were still fresh in her mind.

Akihiko’s slightly panicked urging only made her slower, until she gave a firm nod of her head.

“Come on,” She said to the others. She summoned her Persona and climbed atop of it, holding out her hand for the others to join her.

Akihiko turned his attention back to Junpei, who had been holding the centipede shadows off with Agilao. With no other option, Akihiko opened the police station door and walked in, calling for Junpei to follow.

“Wait!” Junpei shouted back.

Trismegistus turned to Akihiko and made a motion in the air, sending a cool feeling through Akihiko. His wrist’s raging pain soothed a small amount.

“It won’t do too much, but it’s better than nothing,” Junpei explained, following Akihiko into the building as Trismegistus disappeared. “Now what?”

“Let’s go to the back, we can hide out there. There might be a back exit, too,” Akihiko ran deeper into the building, silently praying that any good luck gods would be on their side.

The sound of the shadows scratching on the outside walls and windows was present as they walked down the dark hall, looking in each door that was unlocked and constantly looking over their shoulders.

“I can’t believe there’s not another exit,” Junpei growled, lightly kicking another locked door.

“There has to be a fire exit or something,” A loud crash erupted behind them.

The angry shrieks of the shadows were louder now, accompanied with the sounds of scuttling legs and things being knocked over.

Akihiko was leaning against a wall, sweating hard. A coffin sat directly across from him, seemingly staring him right in the face. Beside him, Junpei held his sword in front of him.

“I’ll hold ‘em off. Try to get these locked doors open, maybe the fire exit is behind one of them” Junpei stepped forward, giving Akihiko a determined look before running to the front of the building without waiting for an answer.

“Hey! Get back here, you’re going to get yourself killed!”

Akihiko reached his arm out, grabbing Junpei by the shoulder. “We can hold them off together, or we can find an exit together. I’m not going to let you fight a bunch of shadows on your own, especially after everything else that has happened. We need to stick together.”

Junpei looked hesitant for a moment as he glanced from Akihiko to the direction of the noise that was getting closer to them. He wiped the sweat from his head, sighing as he did and then said, “Yeah, I guess. Still, I don’t think we have much time, which door should we pick?”

“I’ve been in here a few times and it’s a little hard to tell in the dark, but I think I remember there being two fire exits in there and there,” Akihiko pointed to a door near the end of the hall and one near the hall entrance, where one of the centipede shadows was now in view.

As soon as they made eye contact with it, it shrieked and tried to fit itself through the frame, eager to get to the boys.

“Go! Run!” Akihiko pushed Junpei ahead of him as they rushed as quick as they could towards the door.

They already knew it was locked, so Akihiko ran full speed with his shoulder into it to break it open. The door shuddered against it weight, but remained firm. Akihiko’s wrist protested from the action, but he tried again with the same results. Behind him, the shadow was getting closer, and he heard Junpei shout, “There’s another shadow at the end of the hall!”

“I can’t get the door open!” Akihiko shouted back.

“Let’s try again, together!” Junpei stepped forward and readied himself.

“One, two… three!”

The door burst open from their combined weight and Akihiko wasted no time in slamming the door as the centipede shadow closed in. The door almost popped open from the shadow as it lunged at the door but Akihiko held fast, motioned to Junpei.

“Get something to block the door!”

Junpei pushed a desk away from a wall and shifted it in front of the door, Akihiko moving away and moving to a shelf.

“I need help with this,” he said, trying to lift it with one hand as to not disturb his injured one.

The pair shifted the shelf on top of the desk as the shadow tried to break open the door once more. It hissed on the other side, seething with rage.

“The exit should be… here!” Akihiko walked past Junpei over to a window. They were on ground level, so there was no ladder to climb outside, but the window was high up on the wall.

“I’ll give you a boost,” They told each other simultaneously.

“Your hand is hurt, I can boost you up,” Junpei offered.

“My wrist is hurt, I wouldn’t be able to pull you up with me,” Akihiko countered. “Just let me boost you, alright?” He held his hands out in front of him and the window.

“Alright, fine. I’m going to leave my sword on the ground, just hand it to me when I get up there,” Junpei set his blade on the ground and climbed on Akihiko’s hands. He gave Akihiko a pointed look when he heard him hiss in pain, but the older boy ignored it, urging him on. He unlocked the window and wiggled his way up to the top and sat on the edge.

Akihiko raised the sword up for Junpei to take.

The door crashed in from behind them.

The centipede’s pincers yanked Akihiko’s legs out from under him.

Junpei fell backwards through the window to the outside in surprise.

The sword tumbled to the floor of the police station.

It all happened so quickly that neither of them could do anything, so with a gruff heave of defiance, Akihiko muttered, “Screw it.”

Akihiko easily broke out of the centipede’s grasp, a move he was accustomed to from all his years of boxing. He grabbed the sword off the ground and ignored the sting of protest his wrist gave off.

He initiated the battle with a heavy swing of the sword, aimed directly at the shadow’s eye.

It got up on its back legs to a substantial height, snapping its pincers with ferocity. The sword struck it in the neck, splitting the shell that protected it. The shadow hissed before it lunged forward.

Akihiko dodged to the right, sending the shadow crashing into the wall. Akihiko swung the sword over his head and stabbed it in the shadow while it was stunned. That did the trick.

It went through the shell that time and hit flesh, causing the shadow to wriggle and writhe in pain. It curled up to try to defend itself, but Akihiko kicked it as he tried to retrieve his sword again.

The shadow retaliated with a kick of its own, though it was more of a fling that sent Akihiko against the wall. The sword had slipped out with him but he dropped it as he stumbled back.

Seeing an opening, the shadow flew towards Akihiko, opening its sharp pincers wide to crack the teen’s skull in two. With not enough time to grab his sword, Akihiko threw his hands forward and caught the sharp blades that tried to dig into his face.

The pincers dug through his gloves into his hands as he desperately tried to throw the shadow off. It didn’t help that he had an injured wrist. He could hear the other shadow trying to get it from behind him.

With one quick motion, Akihiko pushed the shadow back and ducked, rolling away as the shadow’s pincers snapped shut. It was excellent timing, as the shadow in the doorway tore in the room and was sent tumbling into its counterpart.

Akihiko skimmed the floor for his weapon and after spotting it, grabbed it in his bloody hands and swung hard at the shadows. They were tangled up on the ground, their bodies curling around each other as they tried to untangle themselves. The sword hit clean through their armored bodies as a loud crunching sound pierced the air.

The shadows slumped down, unmoving.

Akihiko took deep breaths, dropping his sword. His hands stung and were bleeding profusely.

“Junpei!” He called out, rushing to the window. “You alright?”

No answer.

“Junpei?” He called again.

A loud crash echoed from the front of the building, and Akihiko’s stomach dropped. He picked up the sword again and ran full speed to the front door.

 

After he had fallen out the window onto his back, Junpei had laid there for a few moments, dazed. He heard the sounds of battle inside the building and panicked, picking himself up and sprinting to the front of the building. He could get another sword and go help Akihiko.

He would have, at least, but in his panic, he forgot about one issue.

There were still two shadows outside the police station, one of them the third of the centipedes and the other, the behemoth shadow that blocked their path from before.

Junpei tried not to get into battle with them. He tried to not be spotted, but as soon as he remembered they were there, it was too late. He wasted a few minutes running around them and keeping out of their attack range. The giant shadow was so sluggish that Junpei only had to lightly jog around it to stay behind it. The centipede was tougher to dodge, but he managed to keep a solid distance.

He needed to get into the building. He needed to know if Akihiko was okay.

Junpei braced himself as the giant shadow stopping moving about and instead raised its sword in the air and let out a shriek.

Junpei waited for something to happen.

A fireball, an electric attack, his feet to freeze to the road.

Nothing.

“What was that about?” Junpei whispered to himself. That’s when he heard it.

It wasn’t an attack. The shadow was calling for backup.

The cavalry had arrived.

New shadows slithered down from the side of the building, their long bodies coiling and wrapping around anything they brushed. They were similar in form to the centipede shadows, just not armored. They stared intensely at Junpei, with large eyes that pierced with the sharpness of a cat.

Junpei backed up against the building across from the police station, eyes going back and forth between the three newcomers and the giant who seemed to be giving him a malicious grin, if that was even possible.

With a new opening, the centipede shadow saw its chance and lunged, mouth open and long two-foot claws practically shimmering in anticipation.

Junpei leapt out of the way, only to be caught by one of the new shadows. It swung its tail into Junpei’s legs, knocking him down and shoving any breath he had from his lungs out.

The long body of the shadow twisted around Junpei, slowly trapping him limb by limb until both his arms were pinned down at his sides and he was forced to stare up at the thin head of the beast.

“Junpei!”

Akihiko ran out of the police station, catching the attention of all the shadows.

Gunshots rang out.

Athena crashed into the huge shadow next to him.

Bullets ripped into the shadow that held Junpei and made it recoil in pain, dropping its captive. Junpei scrambled to his feet and wasted no time in calling in Trismegistus, ignoring the terrible feeling of tiredness that washed over him from over-using his Persona.

The two people and their Personas let out an onslaught of attacks, with Athena speeding around and slashing at everything in sight and Trismegistus letting out a rain of fire on the shadow that had Junpei trapped only a minute prior.

Aigis ran around, jumping high into the air and unloading clip after clip into the soft bodies of the snake-like shadows. They snapped their fangs in annoyance, forgetting about the easier target on ground that was currently running towards Akihiko, who tossed him his sword back.

Moments later, the others arrived.

Isis let out a strong gale of wind that finished off one of the snake shadows while Orpheus burned up the other two snakes.

Aigis and Mitsuru turned their attention to the giant and worked on slowing it further. Mitsuru froze it to the spot and Aigis continued her bullet storm into its head.

Koromaru and Ken went next, trying their respective dark and light attacks to down the shadow.

Nothing seemed to do much to until a sudden strong blast of lightning put an end to it.

Caesar appeared suddenly and let out a high velocity of electricity. It coursed through the body of the shadow for a moment before it exploded, sending shadow guts everywhere like gruesome confetti.

“Akihiko, you alright?” Junpei sheathed his sword and slung his friend’s arm around his shoulder.

“Yeah, I was lucky that you left your sword. What about you, you just vanished!” Akihiko was stumbling on his feet as he tried to walk forward.

“I heard you fighting, so I went to help. I forgot about the shadows up front, and I almost got my ass handed to me,” Junpei sighed, rubbing the side of his stomach as he talked.

“Are you two alright? What happened?” Mitsuru rushed over and helped Akihiko walk over to the others.

Akihiko shifted his weight to accept Mitsuru’s help as he spoke. “We were cornered, I’m glad you all came when you did, because things started going south, fast.”

“You can tell us on the way back, let’s go,” Minato took up Junpei’s other side as he talked, gesturing down the street.

 

The walk back to the dorm was exhausting, painful, and cumbersome.

After arriving at the dorm, Ken and Yukari called Kala-Nemi and Isis to heal them all to help the pain ease away, although they looked very tired as they did so. Apparently, they had to fight some shadows on the way back to the dorm to warn the others, and they had exhausted themselves in doing so.

Everyone fell back on the chairs and couches in the living room of the dorm. Any outsider looking in would’ve thought the kids were dead by the way they sat.

Akihiko was silent as the girls tried to spark conversation amongst themselves. Minato blanked out and stared at the wall, the faint sound of his music blasting in his ears from his ever-present headphones. Ken went to the kitchen to pour out some dog food for Koromaru. Junpei tried to close his eyes to rest until Mitsuru gathered everyone’s attention.

“I’m making an executive decision,” Mitsuru began. “That we are not going to split up the group anymore. In the event that a team member is injured,” Mitsuru paused and looked at Akihiko and Junpei. “We will retreat. Do I make myself clear?”

Murmurs of agreement passed through the group.

“Great. I’ll be in my room if anyone needs me. I suggest that you put on some cleaner clothes and get some sleep,” Mitsuru nodded to everyone before leaving, Ken following her upstairs as they headed to their rooms.

Things stayed quiet downstairs for several minutes longer until the silence was broken with a question.

“Where do you think Strega is?”

None of the remaining members downstairs were prepared for the sudden question, much less from Minato. He looked as if he had fallen asleep on the couch until his eyes had snapped open with the question.

Everyone in the room sat quiet for a second, looking at Minato who refused to stare at anything other than the ceiling.

“What? I-I don’t know? They’re just…” Fuuka trailed off. It _was_ odd how Strega hadn’t shown up anywhere.  It had been at least two, maybe three days already, hadn’t it? Now that she was thinking about it, how many days had it been since the Dark Hour had refused to end?

“They must be hiding somewhere,” Yukari stated. She didn’t have anything else to say, especially after what had happened in November with Chidori. Yukari stole a glance at Junpei.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Junpei cut in quickly. “But I’m tired. I’m going to bed, g’night.” He was gone in a flash.

“C’mon Fuuka, let’s go upstairs,” Yukari led her friend up a few moments later.

Akihiko sat in his chair for a few more minutes, massaging his wrist before he went up himself.

Minato rested his head back and closed his eyes. Maybe if he could visit the velvet room, he could get some answers.

Before he could properly adjust himself to do so, a voice came from behind him.

“Minato, you should go to bed. The couch is not a good place for one to sleep on. It is imperative that you get lots of sleep tonight to make sure you are ready tomorrow if we have to fight.”

It was Aigis, who poked his side when Minato didn’t answer right away.

“The couch is not a good place for-”

“I _know_ Aigis.”

With that, Minato got up to head to his room.

“You should try to sleep too,” he said, strolling up the stairs with a wave.

Aigis merely blinked in response.

 

Fuuka and Yukari sat on the edge of Mitsuru’s bed, swinging their feet and brushing their toes against the soft carpet. Mitsuru sat across from them in a large chair.

Each of the girls had already changed out of their old clothes and were lounging in their pajamas, making idle conversation.

“Mitsuru, what do you think Strega is doing right now? Where do you think they are?” Yukari stopped both of her feet on the carpet and tilted her head at the older girl, who looked up from a magazine she was skimming over.

Mitsuru paused for a moment before speaking, looking unsure of herself as she spoke.

“That’s tough to say. I assume they must be having as much trouble with the shadows as we are, especially since there’s only two of them. I imagine they must be cooped up in some building somewhere.”

Yukari looked up at the ceiling and nodded to herself. That sounded reasonable enough. She would’ve liked to be able to laugh at that, but seeing how they were rather trapped as well, the thought lost any humor. The others might argue against that, calling their dorm a base, but Yukari knew better. What with the stronger shadows lurking and no foreseeable answer, they were kept here until they could think their way out.

Silence fell throughout the group as Mitsuru abandoned her magazine on the coffee table and sat up in her chair.

“We should all get some sleep. It may feel early and I realize that our bodies are having trouble adjusting to this change, so it would be best to try and let ourselves adapt to this.”

“If you don’t mind Mitsuru, I have a question for you,” Fuuka asked. Mitsuru nodded at her in response.

“Do you think that Strega could be behind this? The Dark Hour not ending, I mean?”

Yukari perked up, looking at Mitsuru. That was an interesting idea. Mitsuru seemed to agree, or at least give it consideration as she looked down in thought.

“I think,” She began, pausing as if to look for the right words. “That they do not have the capabilities to do so. However, they have exhibited the fact that they know a lot of information about the Dark Hour and the shadows, at least from what I’ve been able to gather. I don’t think that they could’ve caused all this, but I’ll remember to look into it just in case.”

“I don’t think we’re gonna have to worry about them, Fuuka,” Yukari piped up. “I feel like by now they would’ve found us and started bragging, ya know?” Yukari winked and gave Fuuka a confident smile before taking her arm and leading her out of Mitsuru’s room.

“G’night Mitsuru,” Yukari and Fuuka called on their way out, leaving Mitsuru still standing in her room.

 

In her room, Yukari laid on her bed, arms wide apart as she glared at the ceiling. She was exhausted, but no matter what she did, her mind wouldn’t shut off.

A small knock interrupted her thoughts as she kept tossing and turning in bed, struggling to get comfortable.

“Who is it?” Yukari asked.

“It’s Ken,” the small voice of the younger boy accompanied by a bark answered back.

Yukari sat up on his bed. What did Ken want? She stood up, walking over to the door to crack it open for a peek.

There stood Ken and Koromaru, who wagged his tail once he caught sight of Yukari.

“Oh, sorry. Were you sleeping? I can leave-” Ken started.

“No no no, you’re good. I doubt I’ll be sleeping too much tonight in the first place,” Yukari swung her door open to let the pair in and gestured lazily inside.

Koromaru trotted in and leapt up on the bed, pushing Ken to follow suite.

“What’s eating at ya?” Yukari plopped herself on the bed next to them and started scratching Koro’s ears, much to the dog’s enjoyment.

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened with the huge shadow. Not the one we just fought, the stomach one,” Ken said back.

“Oh,” Yukari stared blankly at Ken. She hadn’t been expecting that. “What about it?”

“I can’t stop thinking of the feeling I had when it… I guess ate me? It hurt so bad and some of the spots still haven’t gone away. I don’t understand how you and the others just seem to have brushed it off so easily,” Ken kicked his feet awkwardly as he spoke, choosing to stare at the floor. “I wasn’t sure who to talk to about this, I don’t know.”

“I haven’t forgotten about it,” Ken was surprised by the blank expression Yukari had while giving her answer. “In fact, I don’t think any of us have. I just think that with what has been happening and all the fights we keep getting into, it’s just been pushed to the back of our minds. I think that when we have time to breathe and look back, that’s when it’s going to come back to hit us all.”

“Besides,” Yukari added. “I’ve definitely noticed a change in everyone. Minato, Aigis, Fuuka and Mitsuru have been staring at us all ever since we won that fight. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to lose five members of the team at once just like that. Akihiko doesn’t seem to be affected, but like I said, it’ll catch up to us soon. I’ve noticed Junpei lost in thought a few times around the dorm in the mornings and he keeps scratching himself too, and he’s making the red spots on his skin worse.”

“We were effected, it’s not just you,” she finished.

The room took on a quiet air, not quite awkward but getting to that point.

“Do you think the Dark Hour is going to end?” Ken asked.

“Do you mean the never ending one or the one we’re used to?”

“The never ending one, but I wouldn’t mind hearing your answer one that one too.”

Yukari squinted her eyes in the dark. She moved her head to stare out of the window at the moon. It was only a crescent moon, just a sliver in the sky, but it still seemed to cast the same amount of dark green light everywhere.

“I think that eventually, we’ll be able to find some kind of answer to this. We might not have any ideas now, but maybe tomorrow there’ll be some answer. As for the other Dark Hour, I’m honestly not sure about that either,” Yukari crossed her arms as she talked.

“I don’t want to have to put any thought into that one just yet, not until we’ve solved this problem. Unless this is some weird final test or something for the original Dark Hour to end. That’d be something,” Yukari finished.

Ken nodded briefly, taking it in.

“Thanks for that, I really needed to talk to someone about this,” Ken said, getting up from the bed. He glanced at Koromaru. “I would take Koromaru, but he seems comfortable with you tonight. Good night.”

“Hey, I should be thanking you. Good night,” Yukari called back, resting her hand on Koro’s head as Ken walked out the open door.

Yukari picked up Koromaru and set him in her lap, scratching the tired pup’s belly and laying back on her bed herself.

Koromaru rolled off of her lap next to her as Yukari curled her legs and immediately fell asleep.

 

Akihiko slowly made his way up the stairs, planning to check up on all his teammates before he went to bed.

He’d never done something like this before, but he figured with the shadows lurking around outside, it wouldn’t hurt to check up on everyone to make sure they were safe in bed. He wanted to make sure all the windows were locked.

He knocked on Minato’s door first, peeking in when said boy didn’t answer. Minato was in bed, snoring loudly with his headphones still on. Akihiko snuck in and checked to make sure the window was locked before leaving and closing the door silently behind him. He skimmed the hall, looking quickly back at the stairs.

He jerked his head back. He swore that he had just seen Aigis peeking over at him through the banister, eyes boring into him as he left Minato’s room, but if she had been there she was gone now.

He went to Junpei’s room next, and he was snoring as loud as Minato. His hat was tipped over his eyes and Akihiko removed it and place it on his drawer next to the bed before going over to his window, which was open. He closed and locked it before moving to exit. He had trouble getting in and out of the messy room quietly, but called it a victory when Junpei didn’t wake up.

Ken’s room was empty, which surprised Akihiko. He went over to Aigis, who was in fact on the stairs, stationed as a guard to make sure no shadows broke in.

“Did Ken come downstairs?”

Aigis shook her head. “He went upstairs.”

“Upstairs? Why would he-”

Akihiko was interrupted by Ken walking down the stairs.

“Oh, Ken. What were you doing up there?”

“I was talking to Yukari is all. I’m going to bed now,” Ken answered.

“I see. Can you make sure that your window is shut and locked? I want to make sure the dorm is closed up before we all get to sleep,” Akihiko started walking upstairs to the girl’s rooms.

“Sure thing,” Ken said back, closing the door to his room. “Good night!”

Akihiko went to Yukari’s room, surprised to see her already asleep with Koromaru. Koromaru raised his head in acknowledgement as Akihiko checked her window, already locked.

He was surprised once more to find that Fuuka was awake, as she answered the door when he knocked.

“Oh, Fuuka, I didn’t know you were still awake. Can you make sure your window is closed and locked?” he asked.

“Sure thing! Are you going to bed after this?” Fuuka asked him.

“I’m going to check all the other windows first, if Aigis hasn’t already gotten to them. I also need to ask Mitsuru, and I’m sure she’s still awake, but yeah,” he said back.

Fuuka went over to her window and gave it a once over before shutting her curtains. She gave him a thumbs-up that made him close the door and move to Mitsuru’s room. She answered her door as well.

“Just checking to see if all the windows are locked up,” he explained.

“Mine is, and all the on this floor and downstairs are as well. You should go to sleep,” she said.

“You should go to sleep, you hypocrite,” he shot back with a smirk that Mitsuru caught as well before he went back to his room.

He closed the door behind him and changed into some clean clothes, falling asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

 

In her own room, Fuuka sat on her bed, tired and wanting to sleep. Her body melted against the soft bed, but her brain kept going on and wouldn’t let her sleep.

Yukari had already gone to her room and Fuuka could only guess that she was the only one left awake, until Akihiko knocked on her door. Fuuka left her room fifteen minutes later in a huff.

She just couldn’t get herself to rest, and the more she tried, the worse it seemed to get. She hadn’t expected to run into Aigis on the way down the stairs to the living room, yet there the robot was, sitting on the stairs.

“Aigis?” She asked.

Aigis became alert, standing up and swiveling around to face Fuuka.

“Good morning, Fuuka. I have not awakened you, have I?” Aigis asked.

Fuuka giggled. “What do you mean ‘good morning’?”

“Yukari has let me know that whenever you wake up in the morning, you greet people with that phrase. My internal clock reads that it is in fact, six o’clock in the morning. I was just in sleep mode, so I responded with the appropriate comment.”

“Well, I guess I should apologize to you for waking you up then,” Fuuka lightly pushed Aigis’ shoulder to get her to sit back down and sat herself next to the android.

“Do not apologize, I do not need sleep as much as humans do. Why are you still up?”

“I just can’t sleep is all. I can’t stop thinking of what’s been happening, I guess. What are you doing on the stairs?”

“Mitsuru has instructed me that due to the unsafe environment we are now in and my lack of needing sleep, I would be best used as a watch guard to ensure the safety of the team. While I am in sleep mode, I am still aware of my surroundings and can rush to aid anyone if a shadow were to break in,” It was almost like Aigis was reading her instructions off of a paper the way she spoke. Logical and to the point.

“Well, I’m sure the idea of a shadow breaking in here will help me sleep,” Fuuka joked sorrowfully.

Aigis didn’t seem to understand, causing Fuuka to backtrack and explain her words.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to cause you stress. Do not worry, Fuuka, I will keep everyone safe. I promise,” Aigis placed a hand on Fuuka’s shoulder in a comforting manner before pulling Fuuka up on her feet.

“You should sleep,” Was the only response Fuuka received when Aigis began to half-carry, half-push Fuuka back upstairs to her room and waiting bed.

Aigis closed Fuuka’s door as soft as she could on her way out and Fuuka heard her make quiet steps back to the stairwell.

Fuuka smiled to herself. She was lucky to have such great friends.


	4. Chapter 4

Groggy from waking up, Ken rose out of bed sluggishly and went to dress himself, now slightly accustomed to feeling for his dresser in the dark. He walked downstairs and found Fuuka, Mitsuru and Aigis already awake in the living room, peeking through the curtains outside.

Aigis heard Ken’s footsteps and turned to greet him, distracting the other girls from whatever they were staring at.

He grabbed a piece of fruit to eat and walked over to the group, who all whispered amongst themselves and stole glances out the window.

“Greetings, Amada,” Mitsuru gave a short nod and stole another quick glance outside. “We were just discussing about what to do about… this next problem, but we figured that we should wake everyone up first beforehand, so we’ll all be on the same page.”

“What’s going on?” Ken asked, getting on his toes to try to look over the older woman’s shoulder to see outside.

“Fuuka woke up first and alerted me that she felt something outside,” Aigis began. “We both looked out the window and saw-” Aigis moved out of the way so Ken could finally see. “-those things.”

Ken wasn’t sure where to look at first, his eyes were accustomed to the dark but he searched ground level before looking up at the sky. That’s when he saw them. Two large, spherical things flying around in the sky, a few miles away and very high in the air.

Ken furrowed his brow, trying to make out what they were. The green light made out very few details, but he caught a few things from their appearance. Of course, he had an idea of what they were but it couldn’t be that of all things, could it?

“Are those eyes?” He asked incredulously.

“We believe so,” Fuuka answered. “They had a very strong reading, I didn’t even need to have Juno summoned to feel it. It was the same feeling as when we broke that shell in the warehouse and that big shadow fell out.”

“What are we going to do? Those things are too high in the air, aren’t they?” Ken asked next.

“Aigis pointed that out too. Our Personas can reach that high, but we would be stuck on the ground. However, since they are shadows, there is a chance that they will come down to fight us,” Mitsuru answered. “That’s what we have worked out so far.”

Ken tore his eyes from the shadows and stared at the others. Dark memories of his time inside the other shadow swirled in his head. His stomach dropped and he didn’t feel hungry enough to eat his breakfast. If the shadow reading of these two were just as powerful as the first one, then what chance did they stand of beating two?

“We should wake the others and prepare for battle,” Mitsuru said.

Fuuka and Aigis nodded before heading upstairs, Fuuka going to Yukari’s room first and Aigis knocking loudly on Minato’s door to rouse him.

“Is something the matter, Amada?” Mitsuru remained in her spot and looked down at Ken, who had zoned out staring at the floor.

“I’m just thinking about something, that’s all,” Ken muttered before throwing the fruit back in its bowl and trudging up the stairs to ready himself for the upcoming mission.

Mitsuru eyed him as he made his way up, but said nothing. Perhaps she could discuss a strategy with Arisato and Aigis after everyone was ready.

 

Everyone crowded near the front windows, looking out at the flying eye shadows with varying expressions. Some were intrigued, some were fearful, and some held no emotion in their faces.

“What’s the plan again?” Junpei asked.

“Use your Persona to fight the shadows. Keep an eye out for any ground shadows. Don’t die,” Minato supplied, stepping away from the glass to open the front door.

Junpei raised his eyebrow, but followed him and the others as they walked outside into the cool air of the Dark Hour and towards their new objective.

Of course, the plan was more complicated than Minato made it sound, but they had already explained everything twice and Minato was getting antsy waiting and wanted to actually start doing something instead.

S.E.E.S crept low to the ground, each checking their flanks and behind them for any stray shadows as they made their way past every building, inching closer to the looming shadows in the sky.

The cool air nipped at Yukari, making her shiver and wish she had taken her coat along with her. The temperature was reminiscent of the cool December air that would have been there if not for the strange phenomenon going on.

It was when they finally got within fifteen feet of the shadows when suddenly the large eyes spun in the air, staring down at the group. Both parties froze, trapped in a stare down, waiting for each other to make the first move. There were no visible differences between the eyes except for the color of the irises, one was red, the other blue.

The eyes made the first move, swooping down on the group suddenly, not low enough to be an attack but more of a warning. S.E.E.S reacted quick, ducking down to the street and keeping their weapons trained on the shadows as they flew up into the air again to stare at their targets.

“Yamagishi, scan them. We’ll give you cover,” Mitsuru grabbed her evoker in her left hand and pressed it to her forehead, gripping her rapier tighter in her other hand as Artemisia appeared in a flash of light.

“Right!” Fuuka kneeled down and Juno appeared in another bright flash.

The shadows reacted immediately; the red eye soared down to Artemisia in a divebomb and the blue eye formed a light around itself, illuminating the surrounding buildings. The blue’s veins bulged with strain as the light grew brighter.

Mitsuru acted fast, leading Artemisia to the side to dodge the attack by the red eye and sending an ice attack back its way.

The shadow pulled up in time to dodge the attack and flew next to its companion, who was still glowing with light.

Yukari acted next, aiming her bow straight into the air at the blue eye and letting it loose. The arrow struck its target and it flinched at the slight pain.

Akihiko summoned Caesar and shot Ziodyne at the red one, who dodged it and made a large loop in the sky, getting higher into the air.

Minato and Junpei brought Orpheus and Trismegistus out next, right when the blue eye let loose a very powerful blizzard that coated the whole group, Personas included, in a thick layer of snow and ice. Artemisia had been blocking most of the attack from hitting Fuuka, who finally seemed to gather enough from the enemies.

“The red eye uses fire attacks and the blue one uses ice attacks. Due to the way they are made up, they have twenty times the vision we do, so they’ll be able to see and dodge easier,” Fuuka recited, adding. “They’re weak to everything, but what they lack in armor, they make up for in speed.”

As if to emphasize the point, both eyes shot off into the sky, away from S.E.E.S and towards the higher buildings in the city.

“C’mon, after them!” Yukari urged, summoning Isis and hopping on it.

Everyone else followed on their Personas with the exception of Fuuka and Koromaru, who hitched a ride on Artemisia with Mitsuru.

They flew carefully, not wanting to go too fast in fear of falling to the ground. Their group split onto the roofs of different buildings, across and next to each other, surrounding the shadows.

Mitsuru dropped Koromaru and Fuuka on one roof, instructing Koromaru to keep Fuuka safe as she offered back-up. Koromaru barked in understanding and Mitsuru took a spot with Junpei on the roof across from the pair. Ken and Minato sat on a shorter roof directly next to Mitsuru and Junpei. Aigis, Yukari and Akihiko took a spot on a roof higher than most in the section two buildings down from the rest. They all readied their Personas, taking their own weapons out in preparation for another diving attack.

“They seem to be vulnerable when they are preparing an elemental attack, so use that time to strike,” Fuuka said.

Orpheus led the charge with all the other Personas following as they flew towards the eyes and readied their attacks.

Orpheus and Trismegistus both shot matching Agidynes at the blue shadow, who dodged and flew in a corkscrew to the ground. Ken and Mitsuru followed next, targeting the same one with their attacks. The shadow managed to dodge Mitsuru’s ice but was struck by Ken’s Ziodyne. It faltered in the air for a second before rushing towards the clouds.

The red shadow was distracted enough with Caesar, Isis, Cerberus and Athena all striking at it, using different attacks each time and getting closer to hitting each time. Things grew even harder when Aigis began shooting at it and the other four sent their Personas to join the fight.

Everyone was preoccupied with the red shadow as it danced around the attacks, getting singed by fire and small cuts appearing where it barely was able to dodge. They forgot about the blue one momentarily.

The blue eye had made a loop, leaving the sight of S.E.E.S until it came back around in front of Fuuka and Koromaru.

Before she could say anything, the eye’s iris flashed a brilliant teal color, staring directly at Fuuka. Koromaru barked frantically at the shadow, but couldn’t attack it because it was too high in the air.

Cerberus tried to come over to them to help but the distraction gave the red eye enough time to tackle the Persona, stunning the small dog. Koromaru whimpered in his spot, looking back at his team who were still working on the red one.

Juno disappeared and Fuuka stood up in a daze. She clumsily began walking to the edge of the building.

Koromaru didn’t understand why she was acting that way, but he knew that it wasn’t right. With one last effort, he let out the loudest bark he could muster.

It got the attention of Yukari for a second, who’s eyes grew wide.

“Fuuka!”

Everyone else looked over to their support who was only a few paces away from the edge, the blue eye still staring directly into her.

Isis left the group, taking Yukari with it as it sent a burst of wind and a few arrows into the eye. It was a direct hit, and the eye looked over at its attackers and fled once again.

Yukari leapt off a few feet away onto the building, which was a stupidly dangerous thing to do but she was worried sick about Fuuka, who had collapsed on the ground after the eye was driven away.

She shook Fuuka as she said, “Hey, what happened? Are you okay?”

It was Fuuka’s eyes that scared Yukari the most. Her irises were missing.

Fuuka blinked a few times and the color in her eyes came back. She blinked rapidly and asked vigorously, “Where am I? What happened?” as Yukari gripped her arm to keep her still.

Akihiko joined them, sent by Mitsuru while the others still tried to chase down the red eye. They were getting tired from having their Personas work so hard, which began to move sluggishly, bumping into each other midair.

The red one saw its chance and slammed into each one of them, knocking each out in a single hit.

Their summoners stepped back in shock, and both shadows saw their chance. The red eye glowed bright, no doubt getting ready a fire attack while the blue one returned and targeted Ken.

This time the iris changed to a light brown color as it stared the young boy down. Minato interfered though, not certain of what was happening when it used the move but determined to not let it happen. Orpheus appeared in a flash to kick it away.

Minato jogged over to Ken to check on him, who seemed befuddled as to what exactly had happened in the past ten seconds. He stumbled on his feet and Minato grabbed his shoulder to steady him.

“What happened?” Minato asked.

 

The same question came out of Akihiko’s mouth as soon as Fuuka seemed well enough to answer.

“I-I don’t know. One moment I was helping you guys, the next I woke up here. Did it cast a sleeping spell?” Fuuka was rambling, clearly startled by her companions.

“You were about to walk off the edge of the building, Fuuka!” Yukari almost shouted, her voice wavering.

“Do you have an idea of what it could’ve done?” Akihiko butted in.

“Let me scan it,” Fuuka said, summoning Juno.

Koromaru whimpered again, walking up to Yukari and Akihiko with his head lowered as if to apologize.

“It’s okay Koro, you did fine. You warned us in time,” Yukari soothed him and periodically looked around her, watching for the shadows. Koromaru slightly wagged his tail before taking a protective stance in front of Juno, prepared to do better.

 

Aigis was having trouble in her own position. Her partners had left to check on Fuuka, which was understandable after the strange scare they all had. The blue eye began to target her specifically after she was left alone, so she resorted herself to travel over to Minato and Ken, who were working with Mitsuru and Junpei to fight the red eye.

The red eye wove around each attack that was shot at it and slowed itself to begin charging an attack of its own. Small embers began appearing around the sclera, glowing red hot like fireflies in the darkness.

“We have to stop it for good!” Minato abandoned his sword for the time being and tried hitting the shadow with Orpheus.

Before Orpheus could land the hit, more shadows leapt from the sides of the buildings, intercepting the Persona.

“More enemies have caught on to us. We must make haste,” Aigis said, aiming her guns to blast the newcomers.

“We should try to freeze or paralyze it instead!” Ken shouted, looking to Mitsuru. She nodded, summoning Artemisia to prepare a Bufudyne attack.

Blue light enveloped Artemisia, who lashed out with her whip as a strong beam of frost shot at the eye. Simultaneously, the eye finished charging its attack and out from it a wall of fire hit the ice beam straight on.

Steam and smoke billowed from the point where the attacks hit, but neither side gave an inch. As the attacks finished, Aigis fought to keep the shadows from the roof of the building.

Another Bufudyne shot from behind Mitsuru, along with a Ziodyne. She quickly turned to Minato and Ken with their Personas, Minato using Jack Frost this time to try to successfully freeze the shadow.

It was a second too late as both attacks grazed the shadow, who had made a quick dive out of the way. It caught sight of its blue companion and began charging an attack aimed directly at it. The blue eye followed suit, a thin layer of frost becoming visible as it charged another ice beam.

“What are they up to now?” Ken asked, knocking back a smaller shadow that had made its way up the building.

Both shadows let out their elements at each other, connecting in the air much like what had happened with Mitsuru and red’s attacks. All eyes were on the pair, scrutinizing them in confusion trying to figure out what they were doing.

Thick waves of fog curling off the connecting beams and began to mist the air, making the scene harder and harder to see. Ironically, it then became clear.

“They’re trying to give themselves cover!” Akihiko shouted from his position. “They’ll be able to see through the fog with their enhanced vision, be careful!”

“Let’s stand back to back! Watch each other, we don’t know where they are!” Minato called out, jogging over to Ken. Aigis followed, keeping steady watch of the swirling fog for any movement.

Mitsuru and Junpei were back to back near the edge, evokers to their heads as they scanned the white clouds. It was impossibly dense, not giving a hint as to where the shadows could have crawled off to. Even the ground shadows that had been attacking them had stopped. The sliver of green moon gave the fog an eerie glow that held no sound.

On the other roof, Fuuka and Juno ran into more trouble in their attempt to scan the enemies. The fog seemed to have almost magical properties that held off any of Juno’s abilities, replacing any information with static.

“I can’t get any location on them, but stay alert!” Fuuka called out.

Akihiko and Yukari kept their backs to Juno, summoning their Personas as an extra layer of protection as they kept watch for any surprise attacks. Koromaru stuck his nose in the air in an attempt to sniff out any enemies before they could get to close.

With the small amount of moonlight giving the atmosphere some level of brightness, every silhouette that was cast had S.E.E.S on edge. Yukari nearly let loose an arrow several times into her surroundings from the small shifting shapes that moved amongst the team.

“I have an idea!” Yukari eased her bow and called upon Isis to let out a whirlwind into the fog. Rips of air tore into the fog and moved it away with ease, dissipating the apparition. “Use wind to get rid of the steam!”

Minato couldn’t see through the soup well enough to know what Yukari had done, but as soon as he heard her shout about wind, that was all it took to get his gears turning.

“Get ready, I’m going to blow the fog away, we should attack as soon as we see them,” he said, whipping out his evoker and calling Norn to use Garudyne on the fog, hopefully hitting the shadow in the process if he was lucky enough.

Minato didn’t hear much response over the loud gusts of wind, which whipped much of the fog out of sight along with Yukari’s help. The eye shadows seemed to be gone, which baffled Minato for a moment before he turned and saw something that made his stomach drop.

Both of the giant eyes were fixated on almost his whole team, with Mitsuru, Junpei, Ken and Aigis standing petrified in a trance.

“Guys! They’re doing it again!” Minato called back to the other members on the other roof, who turned to see the two giant eyes staring stone cold right at the four members. The colors of the eyes were different now, with one shifting between a red color and a light blue color and the other doing the same with brown and gray.

Fuuka finally caught sight to what was happening.

“It’s using hypnosis! It changes to the color of the eyes of its victims and controls them! You have to stop them before they try to hurt themselves!” Fuuka said. She got up from her kneeling position and Juno disappeared. “We need to get over there now!”

As she spoke, the four members each made different moves, unnatural in their movement as if they never walked before in their lives. Ken acted much like Fuuka had, walking to the end of the roof. Aigis arched her back in a way that looked painful, even for a robot, as Athena burst out and aimed her spear directly into her owner’s chest. Mitsuru and Junpei each pulled out their swords and leveled them at each other’s throats as if to mark the point where they would kill the other. Scratch that, it didn’t just look like it, it was what they were doing, Minato realized as they pulled back their arms.

Minato rushed forward and shoved Junpei out of the way, moving him so he and Mitsuru were no longer at a stabbing distance. Their eyes were almost completely blank, their irises gone and only a pupil remaining. Norn came out next, pushing Athena away from Aigis so she wouldn’t impale herself. Then Minato called Pyro Jack out to catch Ken before the kid could fall off.

“I could use some help over here guys!” Minato shouted to his remaining team.

Akihiko didn’t need to be told twice as he grabbed ahold of Caesar’s back and Koromaru and took flight to the other roof. Yukari followed with Fuuka on Isis right behind him, already preparing an attack.

They barely made it too solid ground before Caesar let out a strong burst of lightning that struck the unsuspecting shadow, releasing its control on Junpei and Ken. The other shadow got a taste of wind and arrows from Yukari’s side before it too released its hold on Mitsuru and Aigis in exchange for an escape. Cerberus was not keen to letting them get away as it let loose a Maragidyne. The thick column of flames swarmed around the eye that was slower to break off its attack, whichever color it could’ve been.

Although the shadow didn’t have a mouth, a loud shriek pierced the air as the now flaming eye glided maniacally around in the sky, desperate to put out the flames. Its skin blackened and its cries for help became loud and more distorted, turning into a static-y sob. Steam erupted from the shadow in a strange way, as if it were emitting smoke. Where was the water coming from?

As the flames died down and the shadow crashed to the ground, S.E.E.S watched as fat tears formed on the mangled shadow, rolling down in thick, slimy puddles on the asphalt.

Its twin panicked, swooping around after the other in an attempt to help, though it was clear now that Koromaru had hit the ice one, which meant the fire one wouldn’t do much in forms of support.

The rest of the team snapped out of the hypnosis they were held in, although they were confused. How had they gotten over here? Where had the fog gone? They didn’t have the time to ask, it seemed.

“We need to finish them off while they’re distracted. We can’t let them get away,” Aigis cocked her guns and took aim, only to be stopped by a mass of ground shadows that had finally come back and climbed to the top of the building after being shoved off.

“Akihiko, Mitsuru, try to stun the fire one! Fuuka, scan the ice one! The rest of us can fight the smaller guys here,” Minato swung his sword as he ushered commands. Everyone reacted quickly, following their field leader’s orders.

Most of the group fought back against the shadows that scaled the walls of the building they all shared, successfully knocking some to the ground and killing a few. Ice and electricity shot out from the older teens’ Personas as they tried to neutralize the fire shadow. Juno and Fuuka sat in thought, checking the stats and information of the ice eye as it laid prone on the street.

“Another big hit will kill it, someone finish it while it’s down,” Fuuka shouted over the sound of battle.

“I got it!” Ken broke away from the fight and ran to the end of the building, Kala-Nemi raining down a Ziodyne attack on the shadow.

The eye burst open from the attack. Parts of it turned to ash from the combined fire and lightning and others clung like mud to the surrounding signs, cars, coffins and buildings.

The fire eye hadn’t been shocked or frozen by Akihiko or Mitsuru’s attacks, but it recoiled from the hits, which gave Yukari a chance to fire more arrows and wind into its body. The attacks landed like a bull’s eye in the pupil, and the scene went on just like the first one had died.

The other shadows retreated into the darkness after the larger ones had died. It was a tiring, but clear victory.

Mitsuru held up her hand for the others to stay silent as she looked to Fuuka. Said girl was looked around the sides of the buildings scanning for any more enemies.

“They’ve all gone,” Fuuka finally spoke up after several quite beats. The group let out a collective sigh of relief they didn’t know they had.

“We should get back to the dorm now,” Minato hopped on Orpheus and lowered himself to the ground, motioning for the others to follow.

They kept close on the street as they trekked back home, leaning to peek down alleyways in fear of being ambushed by any stray shadows.

“How is your sensing ability working, Fuuka?” Yukari asked.

“It’s functioning a lot better than when it first started. I think it was affected when the Dark Hour changed. It’s always worked for me, even outside the Dark Hour a bit. My only guess is that when the Dark Hour didn’t end, it affected Juno. Juno isn’t used to always having to be aware of my surroundings all day so the difference must have messed her up. That’s my only guess,” Fuuka answered.

“That’s an interesting theory. I assumed it was because of the stronger shadows. There’s something off with them, like they’re a different breed than the normal ones. Not to mention that they almost seem to be pouring out of the buildings’ walls. No matter where we go, they’re everywhere.” Akihiko said from behind them.

“I think you are both correct. The shadows are without a doubt much different than the ones we usually fight and they seem to act differently. However, Fuuka can sense them fairly well now, so I think it’s safe to assume that her Persona has in fact grown accustom to the new environment,” Mitsuru said next.

“Well, whatever the case is, I’m just glad we’re all doing fine. I think things could have been a lot worse, what with Koromaru almost being carried off and Akihiko and I getting into trouble at the police station. Not to mention that stomach shadow, I couldn’t sleep that night, that thing messed me up!” Junpei shuddered as he recalled his time inside the shadow.

The group caught sight of the dorm after making another corner and Junpei let out a laugh.

“Finally! My feet are killing me!” Junpei spread his arms open as if to hug the dorm and ran up to it, nearly collapsing against the door as he rushed to get it open. The others chuckled at him as he smacked his forehead on the door before entering.

“I can’t wait to get to-AAAAAAAAAH!”

The sudden scream from Junpei stopped S.E.E.S in their tracks. They all launched themselves towards the dorm at the same time, rushing for the door.

“Junpei!” Yukari called out, bow drawn.

Aigis reached the door first and was surprised at what she saw. Broken glass littered the floor and the room was torn up. A large shadow was on top of Junpei, who was struggling to keep its jaws away from his face. One of their windows were completely shattered, most likely from the shadow that had gotten in.

“Help me out here!” The raspy voice of Junpei called out, the air from his lungs pushed out by the large weight on his chest.

Before Aigis could respond, she found herself under an identical shadow that had leapt on her from her right. It attempted to dig its claws into Aigis as it lowered its mouth to crush her head with its long fangs.

A spear tore through its side as Ken rushed in, lifting the shadow temporarily off the ground to get it off Aigis.

Akihiko and Minato ran past them to get to Junpei as the others piled at the door to view the scene. A third shadow cry echoed from upstairs.

“How did they get in? Akihiko called out, wrestling with the shadow on top of Junpei. His wrist was still sore from the events at the police station, which made it harder to push it off his friend’s chest.

“Through the window,” Aigis answered back, pointing to the pile of glass on the carpet and said window.

Minato helped Akihiko shove the shadow off and proceeded to stab and beat it against the stairs.

Mitsuru and Yukari ran to the other one as Ken yanked his spear out of its body. Yukari felt that it would be too dangerous to try to take aim with her bow in such close quarters with her friends, so she held three arrows in her hand as a makeshift knife and plunged them into the shadow. Mitsuru jabbed it with her rapier in its throat.

The shadow let out a strangled cry as it dissolved, and all the girls headed upstairs once they heard Fuuka direct them to the shadow above them.

The girls maneuvered their way around the guys and rushed up the stairs. Ken spun his spear in his hands and jumped in the air to make a stab into the shadow’s legs. The shadow narrowly dodged it as it spun to face Minato, who had just slashed it across its back.

Junpei scooted backwards towards his sword on the ground away from the fight. His shoulder was sore from the tackle he received, but he managed to pick up his sword and get back into the fight.

Akihiko was kicked in the gut away from the shadow before he could get another punch in. He stumbled towards the open door of the dorm. He glanced outside the dorm and stopped himself from taking another step. More enemies were moving in from down the street, he could see them in the shadows of the buildings. He quickly shut the door and bolted it and went to move the coffee table in front of the smashed window.

“There’s more coming!” He yelled at the others.

Upstairs, Fuuka felt them coming closer. She jogged over to the upstairs window and looked out in shock. There were at least five more shadows closing in on them, two of them centipede shadows, one of them a snake shadow, and the other two new shadows, ones that looked like gargoyles.

She turned to tell the others when a smashing sound broke the air.

The shadow had swiped at Aigis, and her face had been caught in the blow. Machinery was visible from under her false skin and one of her eyes dimmed. Aigis stumbled back in shock as Mitsuru beheaded the shadow with a swift and final blow.

The arrows stuck in it fell to the ground but Yukari paid no attention.

“Aigis!” They all cried, running over to their companion.

“I am fine,” Aigis responded. “None of my important parts were injured.”

“Are you sure? Your face is all torn up!” Fuuka asked.

“Affirmative. All of my functions are up to speed and are working well. The only thing that was damaged was my artificial skin,” Aigis pawed at her face and tapped against it as she spoke, as if to double check her assessment.

“We should check the dorm to make sure no more are here,” Mitsuru said. “Fuuka, do you sense anything in the dorm.”

“I don’t know about inside the dorm yet, but there are more shadows coming towards us from down the street. We should get downstairs to the others, quick!” Fuuka was already heading down the stairs, the others following suit.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yukari asked Aigis with a look of concern.

Aigis nodded her head before running ahead of the girls to get to the bottom floor.

On the first floor, things were hectic. They had managed to finally kill the first shadow, but now they were all running around trying to block up any entrances. The windows were covered and the couch was pushed up against the front door.

“Have we covered everything?” Mitsuru asked, rushing down the last steps of the stairs next to Aigis.

“I think so, but there’s a lot of noise at the door,” Just as Ken finished his thought, a loud series of bangs and scratching came from the double doors. They held fast, with two large iron locks keeping them in place.

“Do you think we would have a better advantage point on the roof?” Minato asked. “We could go up there and attack them from above.”

“That would have worked a minute ago, but the shadows are coming from everywhere. There’s a bunch of shadows above us as well, I think they’re the flying ones from before,” Fuuka had Juno summoned the minute she reached the open living room, scanning the whole dorm and around it for anything.

“Wait, above us? Did we get the door to the roof?” Yukari exclaimed.

Nine pairs of footsteps began sprinting up the stairs not even a second later, Minato yelling at Aigis to run ahead and lock the door and block it up before anything could get inside. No-one had time to give a fully-fleshed reaction to Aigis’ new face as they nearly tripped over each other to get to the top.

“Check the other windows!” Mitsuru shouted to the others as she followed Aigis up to the next floor.

Minato, Akihiko and Junpei ran onto the second floor and furiously began running around to check the windows.

Ken, Yukari, Fuuka, and Koromaru continued on and started doing the same on the third floor.

Aigis reached the top door and slid the bolt shut, Mitsuru behind her with a key. Before she could enter the key into the slot, fire erupted from the edges of the door. The metal heated up to an intense red in a flash before the flames died out, and Aigis had to pull Mitsuru back with her before they got burned.

“It appears one of the shadows can use fire attacks,” Aigis said.

“Then let’s retaliate. I have an idea, back up with me,” Mitsuru pulled out her evoker and prayed that Artemisia was small enough to fit in the stairwell. She and Aigis backed up down the stairs at a safe distance before her evoker clicked.

Artemisia fit, just barely, and cracked her whip to create a thick ice wall against the door. Steam swirled up immediately and blew down the stairs, with no room to go anywhere else. Mitsuru stepped back in pain as the steam stung her skin, turning it to an unfavorable, puffy red color.

“Do you think that will hold them?” Mitsuru said, hissing as she touched her burned face and arm.

“I believe that it will be sufficient as long as they refrain from using fire again. Will you be alright?” Aigis asked, leading Mitsuru downstairs.

“Yes, I’ll be fine, I’ve had worse,” Mitsuru replied. “Let’s go check on the others.”

 

The first thing Minato did when he got off the staircase was go directly to the window at the end of the hall. He double and triple checked it to make sure there was no way it could open before cursing himself. What were the shadows going to do, open it up like a regular person? He needed to cover the glass with something. Something like…

“The vending machines!” He told himself as he ran back down the hall to the vending machines. They might be a bit heavy, but if he got Akihiko and Junpei’s help it would work.

“Guys, help me move the vending machine in front of the hall window!” He called out, unplugging the machine and pushing it on the hard floor to the edge of the carpet.

“Got it!” Akihiko answered. “Junpei, c’mon!”

“Alright!”

 

On the next floor, Yukari, Fuuka and Ken were checking around the rooms, Koromaru following Ken because he could not open the doors himself.

Fuuka was at her window when she thought she heard something coming from her bed.

“Koromaru? Is that you? I thought you were with Ken,” Fuuka walked slowly over to her bed and kneeled down to look under it. She lifted the covers that hung over the sides when she heard something clearer the second time.

_“Koromaru? Is that you?”_

It was her own voice, repeated back to her.

A dark mass of slime with too many eyes to count was sitting under her bed. All of its eyes spun to face Fuuka as she covered her mouth in shock.

She fell backwards and tried to run to her door, but it rushed out from under her bed and grabbed onto her legs. Fuuka cried out as she hit the ground.

The black slime quickly engulfed her and covered her mouth, silencing her.

“Fuuka, was that you? Are you ok?” Yukari’s voice came from behind her door.

_“No, I’m fine, just shutting my window. Go check the others,”_ The shadow answered back with her voice, slightly off but real enough.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

Fuuka’s heart dropped when she listened to the receding footsteps of her friend walk down the hallway. She couldn’t utter a word, and try as she might, she couldn’t loosen the grip that the shadow had on her.

The slime methodically began to cover up her whole body, slowly covering every inch as Fuuka suffered through this nightmare.

 

The boys finally got the vending machine down the hall in front of the window when they heard a muffled sound from Akihiko’s room.

They looked at each other in alarm as they crept towards it and opened the door.

A slimy black shadow covered with eyes was creeping around his room, poking at the objects on the floor. A strange sound was emitting from it, like static that was trying to form words.

It caught sight of the trio peeking in and stared into them.

“Damn, it saw us!”

_“Damn, it saw us!”_

Junpei’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Wait, what?”

_“Wait, what?”_

“This thing can talk?”

_“This thing can talk?”_

With each word that Junpei said, the shadow copied, sounding somehow more authentic than the real Junpei.

“Stop talking! Let’s just kill the thing,” Akihiko raised his fists and ran towards it as it copied his own words in Akihiko’s voice this time. It didn’t dodge out of the way in time and was flung back into his shelf.

Junpei was quick to slice it in two and it melted away.

“Wait, how did it get in?” Minato was squinting his eyes as he looked around the room. The window was still intact, which was the only way it could’ve entered the room.

He walked over to the window and took a closer look. His hand brushed the sill and came back sticky with something. Minato opened the window next, despite the protests of Akihiko and Junpei, and checked the outside of the window as well. The same substance was covering it. It didn’t take long to put two and two together.

“Oh no,” Minato’s eyes grew wide. “They can fit in through the cracks. The locks won’t stop these shadows. We have to warn the others.”

“Wait, what do you mean they can fit through the cracks? The window is sealed shut, isn’t it?” Akihiko asked.

“Look here,” Minato pointed to the frame of the window, wiping away more of the slime that clung to it. A very small dent was in it, just a sliver of a space that it could’ve fit through.

“It must have taken awhile, but it did get in,” Minato explained. “Let’s go tell the others.”

 

Yukari had been upset when she saw that Mitsuru had been badly burned but wouldn’t let her heal her. She kept insisting that it wasn’t too bad and to save her energy for something worse, but Yukari still fought with her until Ken and Koromaru came up to them.

“That’s all of them. They’re all locked and we’ve done the best we could to cover them up with anything,” he told Mitsuru.

“I shall go double check the first floor,” Aigis said.

“Try to stay quiet, they seem to get more restless when they hear us,” Mitsuru replied.  “Amada, take Koromaru downstairs with you. Tell the boys that we’re going to have a meeting on the first floor soon.”

Ken nodded and started downstairs, Koromaru trotting behind him. Yukari was the only one standing with Mitsuru now.

Mitsuru caught Yukari’s gaze and turned to look at what she was staring at. It was Fuuka’s room, her door closed.

“Where’s Yamagishi?” Mitsuru asked, knocking Yukari out of whatever thought she was having.

“She’s in her room. She told me she was locking her window, but she still hasn’t come out yet,” Yukari was still looking worriedly at her friend’s room as she answered.

Mitsuru didn’t answer, instead choosing to walk over and knock on Fuuka’s door. No answer.

“Yamagishi?” She tried.

There was silence, until she heard Fuuka answer, _“I’m fine. I’m just blocking up my window.”_

“Do you need any help?” Yukari was walking over to Mitsuru now, awaiting an answer.

_“No.”_

Mitsuru strained her ears. Fuuka’s voice sounded…off, for some reason. Nothing from this situation seemed normal, and even if something wasn’t wrong with Fuuka, she should still go in and help so they could all get together to talk.

Mitsuru opened the door and screamed.

In front of her sat a shadow, squelching and dripping ooze. Small eyes covered most of its body, and sticking out from its mass was a small hand.

“Fuuka!” Yukari and Mitsuru cried out.

Confused, the shadow tried to repeat both of their voices at the same time, making a strangled response in a strange mesh of the girls’ voices.

Mitsuru pulled out her rapier and made a quick slice on the left side of the shadow, hoping with all her heart that she would avoid hurting her friend in the process. A part of the shadow melted away, leaving more slime on the ground, but it wasn’t enough to kill it.

The shadow tried to lunge forward at Mitsuru, but the weight from the human being it possessed held it down. Yukari took that chance to make a risky move, taking a few of her arrows in hand and stabbing it into the shadow from below. The arrows sunk into its disgusting flesh and Yukari lifted it over her head, throwing it into the hallway.

It fell on its side and Fuuka’s back was visible, still poking out from the shadow. Yukari and Mitsuru ran over to her and yanked her out of the shadow, which was thankfully much easier to do than it looked.

Fuuka was covered in the dark slime and was shivering furiously in their arms, causing Mitsuru to make haste to end the shadow. A few more stabs with her sword did the trick, and although she wouldn’t admit it, Mitsuru made sure to stab it directly in its eyes to make sure it died painfully.

“Fuuka! Oh my god, are you okay?” Yukari was kneeling on the ground beside Fuuka holding her face up. Fuuka had wrapped her arms around her friend and was still shaking like mad.

“I was so scared. I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t even sense its presence. What sort of support am I if I can’t even tell where any enemies are?” She cried. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she pressed her face into Yukari’s shoulder, hugging her tight. Yukari hugged back, getting a little teary-eyed herself.

Mitsuru kneeled down with them and placed a comforting hand on Fuuka’s back.

“I’m sorry Mitsuru. I haven’t been able to bring much help to this team. I think the stress is getting to me,” Fuuka wiped her tears away and tried to compose herself.

“You’ve helped us all just fine. We wouldn’t have been able to do the things you’ve done without you. Remember your first full moon battle? When you first summoned your Persona and helped us find its weakness? We wouldn’t have won that battle if it weren’t for you. Don’t worry. it’s not just you, the stress is getting to us all,” Mitsuru answered.

That’s how the three girls stayed until Minato lead the boys in a charge to the third floor.

“Mitsuru!” He called out. “The locks on the windows won’t work!”

The girls looked up in time to see the three of them all skid to a stop, nearly toppling into each other.

“A shadow got into my room through a space in the window. It could mimic our speech too,” Akihiko said.

“We know,” Mitsuru stood up suddenly with the phrase, stunning the three.

“Wait, what? How?” Junpei asked.

“One of them got to Fuuka,” Yukari answered, and that’s when they finally noticed Fuuka on the ground in a heap with Yukari.

“Is she alright?” Minato asked.

“I’ll be fine, I think. Just a little shaken up,” Fuuka said.

“Where are the others?” Minato asked. “Where’s Aigis and Ken?”

“They’re downstairs, we should go down there too. C’mon,” Mitsuru pulled Yukari and Fuuka up and led everyone downstairs.

Ken and Aigis were standing in the middle of the room, looking to each side of the dorm. Any windows that had been there were blocked, and the noise from the shadows at the front door died down. It was extremely dark, with only small lines of green moonlight poking through the furniture covering the windows.

“Where’s Koromaru?” Yukari asked. The small dog yipped in response in the general direction that the couch had been in, but she couldn’t see him.

“Everyone sit on the ground over here,” Minato walked through the dark over to the largest patch of green light that shone on the carpet and sat cross-legged.

Most of them followed suit, with the exception of Mitsuru and Aigis, who preferred to stand.

“I don’t think were safe in this dorm anymore,” Mitsuru started, keeping her voice low as to not disturb the shadows that could be lurking outside. “I think that it would be best if we keep moving to different buildings to set up base. Clearly the shadows know were here now, so when we have the opportunity, we should go.”

“Where can we go?” Ken asked.

“Let me finish,” Mitsuru said in response. “I had first thought things were bad when we separated outside of the dorm, especially after that whole fiasco, but now due to what has happened in this dorm, I think it’s safe to say that we cannot have anyone going off on their own. Always take someone with you, the more people, the better.”

“Great, the safest place to us in this whole city has just been ruined. What’s next, shadows start teleporting to wherever we are? A giant Godzilla shadow destroys the city?” Junpei said in a loud tone.

“Shhh! Don’t let them hear us,” Akihiko slapped Junpei’s arm.

“What’re they going to do, break down the dorm brick by brick to kill us?” Junpei said, lowering his voice by only a small amount.

“C’mon Junpei, quiet-”

A static sound, coming from the ceiling. Changing. Morphing.

_“-hey going to do, break down the dorm brick by brick to-“_

_“What’re they going to do, break down the dorm brick by brick to kill us?”_

_“Brick by brick”_

_“Break”_

_“Kill us?”_

Hundreds of voices repeated the words, all coming from directly above them. Everyone froze, Minato could tell even from the small amount of light. Junpei covered his mouth as everyone slowly looked up at the ceiling.

Even in the darkness, thousands of eyes glinted with green moonlight on the ceiling. None of the shadows had noticed anyone on the floor yet, which was strange, considering they had all just been talking.

The eyes swiveled and rotated around their bodies, still repeating the sentence in a static chant, trying their best to mimic Junpei’s voice.

Minato stood up as slow as he could and started creeping towards the staircase, moving the others to follow suit. Even Koromaru seemed to get the idea, as he crawled across the floor, following everyone.

They were so close to the stairs when clear as day, even through the clutter of voices on the ceiling, one shadow stood out in particular.

_“There,”_ it said.

Minato looked up again, terrified at what he saw.

One shadow was looking right at him, and soon all the shadows did the same, looking down at each member of the group.

“Nobody…. move… a muscle,” Akihiko said through his gritted teeth.

Everyone became a living statue, frozen in place as a few of the large slimes slunk down the walls to investigate.

One set itself directly near Fuuka, who was trembling, still remembering what had only just happened to her.

No-one moved.

Then one started up another chant.

It didn’t use Junpei’s voice this time, it sounded more like a radio filled with static, a disembodied voice filtering through trying to speak muffled words.

_“-mom.”_

_“-ou killed mo-”_

_“You killed mom.”_

_“You killed mom!”_

_“yOU KiLLeD mOm!”_

All the shadows joined in now, like a demonic ritual that filled the room. Everyone tensed up, trying to decipher the meaning of the words. Did these things have a mother? This was the first time they’d seen these kinds of shadows, what were they talking about?

All the shadows fell from the ceiling at once, and that was when Minato finally found his voice.

“Run!”

Everyone took off, running full speed to the stairs. The shadows copied Minato’s words as he ran, taunting the group as they tried to make their escape. He glanced back as he reached the top to see if everyone else made it, and was horrified to see that Junpei and Yukari were backed up near the front door, shadows surrounding them. More shadows piled behind the others as they followed Minato up the stairs. Ken also looked back in time to see the two trapped downstairs.

“Wait! We have to help them!” He cried out.

“There’s no way we’d be able to make it through to them, there’s too many! Keep going!” Akihiko pulled Ken back as a shadow jumped from the ceiling, almost landing on the boy’s head.

Koromaru growled and ran to take a bite out of the shadow, but was ambushed by another shadow on the railing.

“Koromaru!” Ken called out. “We have to help them! We have to help them all!”

“We can’t Ken! Keep going,” Akihiko looked torn even as he tried to pull Ken away.

Minato had to pull on Akihiko to make sure that the boxer wouldn’t run down to help them himself.

Junpei and Yukari were being covered in the slime shadows, fighting off as many as they could, but eventually they were overpowered, dropping their weapons and falling to the ground.

Koromaru was the same, yanking out his knife to take out as many shadows as he could before he too fell victim to the masses.

The legion of shadows tore after their prey, who kept running up the next flight of stairs.

Fuuka and Akihiko were next to go.

Some of the shadows had climbed up the railing in an attempt to jump on Fuuka, who was in the back of the group. Akihiko saw them coming and ran in their way, trying to throw them off back down the stairs.

They covered Akihiko’s face up, who backed up into Fuuka as he fell into the mass that was still scaling the steps. They both disappeared in a matter of seconds.

Ken spun his spear as he tried to fight off each shadow that got too close, Mitsuru following suit with her rapier. Aigis was the tank of their much smaller group, destroying shadow after shadow with her bullets that tore through their soft bodies.

Minato looked up the next set of stairs, dumbfounded to find the door frozen shut.

“What-!” He cried out, and Mitsuru looked up at the door in shock.

“Shit!” Minato had never heard Mitsuru curse before, and considering the situation they were in, it wasn’t a good feeling to hear the woman who always had a good plan curse.

“They stopped,” Aigis said, turning their attention back to the shadows.

They were all on the stairs, motionless. It was as if someone had flipped a switch to turn them off.

Ever so slowly, each of their eyes rolling up so only the sickening yellow was seen, their pupils out of sight.

A hissing noise broke the silence. Some of the shadows started to melt away on their own, forming small puddles of ooze. Behind the crowd, Fuuka popped up from the masses, giving the rest of them some hope that the others were still okay.

Fuuka was clutching her chest, breathing heavy. Sweat was pouring from her forehead as she closed her eyes in concentration, leaning against the railing behind herself.

“They’re hatching,” she said suddenly. “That’s why I can’t sense their presence, it’s because they aren’t fully formed shadows, they’re like pupae.”

“What’s going to come out of it?” Ken asked.

To answer his question, several white balls floated up from the oozing shell that was melted away on the wooden steps. They unfurled small tails and pupils almost seemed to blink into existence. Everything was clear.

“The eyes we fought…were mothers,” Mitsuru said, dumbfounded. “These were their children. We killed their mothers.”

A large crashing sound echoed from downstairs and the roars of new shadows cried out.

“The others broke in!” Fuuka cried out. “The front door is open!

Then something even more unexpecting happened.

The sound of a helicopter sliced the air.

It was muted at first, with everyone in the dorm more focused on not only the baby eyes that were steadily floating up from the goo and the new comers that could be heard hissing and shrieking downstairs. Akihiko got up from under all the shadows that were abandoning their shells and looked down to the first floor with a horrible expression on his face. The sounds of the shadows downstairs fired up again, accompanied by the pained screams of Junpei and Yukari.

Aigis was the first one to hear it. She raised her head and looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if she was hearing what she thought she was hearing. It became louder and louder as it seemed to get closer to their dorm.

The drone of the helicopter stopped everyone in their tracks, as it almost seemed to land on their own roof.

The sound of combat echoed outside the door to the roof, and that’s when the small eyes started their assault.

Akihiko leapt over the railing, not waiting for or listening to any command and instead going to help Junpei and Yukari, who sounded to be in awful shape from their weak pleas for help.

Mitsuru looked insane. Her hair was mussed up and it seemed as if the bags under her eyes had only just appeared as she whipped out her evoker and shouted at Fuuka to get out of the way.

Fuuka stumbled down to the second floor as a ray of frost coated the stairs and many of the newborn eyes.

They squealed in pain and many died in an instant, while others flew around in their new environment, charging up different elemental attacks.

Akihiko was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of shadows that were in the dorm. He wouldn’t be able to fight them all, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.

A whimper brought his attention to his side. Koromaru had a bloody patch of fur on him, but stood strong with a wag of his tail in enthusiasm.

_‘I’ll help you!’_ He seemed to say. He gave a weak bark, wincing from his injury and sniffing it with what Akihiko could only see as a pained look.

Koromaru looked up at him again and whimpered, wanting to help but in pain.

“Stay behind me,” Akihiko told him. “Give me backup.”

With that, he ran into the group, Koromaru moving in a sluggish manner directly following him.

 

Aigis shot down a few of the eyes before she was drawn back to the frozen door. Something was knocking and banging on it, desperate to get inside. It was different from how the shadows tried to get in somehow, and with the added knowledge of the helicopter, Aigis came to one conclusion.

“I think there are people trying to get inside,” she told the others.

Mitsuru and Minato looked to one another in acknowledgment. They read each other’s eyes, both wanting to know the same thing: who?

Ken was too busy skewering shadows on his spear to notice the small burst of lightning from the shadow behind him. It ripped through his body and sent him flying back against the stairs, almost toppling over the railing. He caught sight of Fuuka who was stuck at the end of the hall, being cornered by advancing shadows.

With a new objective, he ran past the eyes, most of which were in the air too focused on the other targets to both themselves with him, towards Fuuka to give her a hand.

A loud smash came from the frozen door, and the ice seemed to crack under whatever weight was being pushed against it.

Each of the two centipedes held Junpei and Yukari captive while the two gargoyle-esque shadows sat on the centipedes, leaning over the teens. The strangled cries of the pair were muffled by the bodies of the centipede and the single snake shadow slithered about the dorm, waiting for the leftovers.

Akihiko knew his own fists weren’t going to cut it this time, so he started off with a Sonic Punch dealt by Caesar.

He started with the snake shadow, since it was in his way and the one not preoccupied with slowly killing something.

It took the hit and rolled back in surprise, coiling up on itself and hissing. Cerberus came from behind him next, trying a Mudoon attack to instantly kill the creature.

It worked, as the snake scrunched up and died in a heap.

“Nice job, buddy!” Akihiko called back to Koromaru, who barked in response.

Now closer, Akihiko was stunned to see what the shadows were doing to his friends. The gargoyle shadows looked like stone statues, with thick looking skin and hooked wings. They had four long fangs in each corner of their mouths and were using them to grind away the flesh in Junpei’s and Yukari’s shoulders. Their bodies were bloody and they didn’t have enough strength to cry for help anymore, looking limp and devoid of energy. Their skin was beginning to pale to a ghostly white and Akihiko knew he didn’t have much time left.

He was at a loss, because if he tried any of Caesar’s attacks, it would also hurt his friends, but there wasn’t any way he could punch all four shadows to death. He had a badly injured dog helping him and he had to account for two lives that were close to death. He needed help. Cerberus’ Mudoon wasn’t going to work every time.

A limo pulled up outside the front door.

 

Fuuka had been trying to make her way to a clear spot to summon Juno for backup when she found herself retreating down the hall, surrounded by mini eyes. She wished she had asked Mitsuru for some sort of small weapon for defense, even if she would handle any knife poorly.

Fuuka glanced nervously from shadow to shadow, their pupils boring holes in her with hatred. Several of them took shots at her, all of which she narrowly dodged.

Ken knew he had to work fast, so he ran in and used the flat end of his spear to pole-vault over most of the shadows, making a downward stab that crushed the closest one to Fuuka.

She was surprised to see him suddenly appear, but thankful nonetheless. She summoned Juno despite not having much room in the hallway. Juno’s wings were folded against the walls, but her sensing ability was not damaged.

“The eyes are almost exactly identical to the mothers,” Fuuka started. “Very fast with a very low defense to everything. Those two on the left are both electric-based, the one in the middle uses fire and the two right ones use wind. I can’t tell if they still have their hypnotic abilities so just watch out for any strange behavior.”

“Right,” Ken readied his spear and dove forward. They seemed to have the unseen advantage of fighting newborns, even if there were five of them.

Ken extended his spear and sliced into the wind eye on the far right. It moved out of the way in time, but the other wind shadow was caught and a long cut appeared under its pupil. Tears formed on its outside, rolling down and mixing with the black ichor of shadow’s blood.

Ken was quick to finish that one off as the fire eye tackled Ken’s side. He winced, but it didn’t hurt as much as he originally thought it would’ve. It seemed the only problems would be the special attacks.

The two electric ones were surrounded by a soft glow, and with confirmation from Fuuka, they were both going to let out an electric shot, one aimed at Fuuka, the other aimed at Ken.

Ken sent two jabs their way that pierced into both targets, who were blinded and stopped their attacks. The fire eye tried charging an attack as the wind one attempted a tackle.

The tackle hit, not hurting any worse than the first one had and the fire eye sent out a weak burst of flame that singed the carpet. The fire hit Ken as he ended the two electric shadows.

He stumbled back, jerking back his hand when he tried to touch his hip. His clothes were singed and had burned his hand. Ken wasted no time in finishing off the last shadows.

“Well,” he said, breathing heavy. “At least those were easier than the moms.”

Fuuka nodded, Juno gone as she walked to the end of the hall to get a look at what the others were doing.

Ken caught sight of Koromaru and went wide eyed at the large gash in his side.

He summoned Kala-Nemi to cast a quick Diarahan on the dog, who looked back at Ken and stood up, wagging his tail furiously in thanks.

“Wait, who’s that?” Fuuka asked, pointing at the front doors. A long car had pulled up outside their dorm, and Fuuka and Ken stood in stunned silence.

“First the helicopter, now the car, what’s going on?” Ken said, bewildered.

Outside the dorm, the car door opened.

Inside the dorm, a large fissure opened up in the ice wall as another crash resounded from the outside.

Mitsuru and Minato looked back at the ice in alarm. Only a few more hits would take down the barrier. The number of enemies was dwindling, mostly due to Aigis, and a path was almost cleared so they would be able to make it downstairs to the others.

Minato only stared at the door in thought until he pulled out his evoker.

“Arisato-?” Mitsuru gave him a questioning look.

“I’m going to take a chance and break down the ice. I don’t know who is behind the door, but I think they want to help us. Do you trust me?” He asked, holding the evoker to his head, his finger twitching against the trigger.

Mitsuru looked from him to the door in a silent debate with her herself. She turned to him with a sigh, uttering a small, “Yes.”

Orpheus appeared and immediately broke down the ice with a swing of his lyre, and Minato rushed in immediately to unhook the lock and swing the door open, which was damaged beyond repair.

On the roof sat a small helicopter, with a pilot in the cockpit and several people around the roof with crossbows. They were shooting down shadows from the sky, giving cover to a large man in a dark coat who held an equally large crossbow in his arms.

His eyes grew wide at the sight of the door opening, and rushed forward over to Minato.

“Is Miss Kirijo alright?” He asked in a rushed tone, looking past Minato down the stairs. Mitsuru caught his eye and he sighed in relief.

“Miss Kirijo, the extraction squad is here. We have a limo out in front to pick up any of your remaining numbers. Please come with me,” He gestured to her to come. “Bring anyone you can with you, this is a rescue.”

Mitsuru finally understood now, but stayed frozen in her place. Akihiko and the others were downstairs and she could see Fuuka and Ken on the second floor, heading down to the first. There was a limo in front, but she wasn’t sure if she could bear to get up and leave at the moment.

“Miss Kirijo, please!” The man urged. He motioned to Minato to get on the helicopter and one of the people shooting down shadows stopped to drag Minato with them to the copter.

“Aigis, follow me,” Mitsuru said, running up the stairs. Aigis followed, rather confused.

“What about the others?” She asked.

“I trust my staff, they’ll be fine,” Mitsuru answered. Even though her voice wavered as she replied, Aigis didn’t say anything.

The three boarded the helicopter with the other people and took off quickly.

“I have a lot of questions,” Mitsuru and Minato asked at the same time.

 

Two arrows pierced the centipedes directly through their shell, killing them instantly. Much of the same happened with the two gargoyle shadows. Akihiko looked on in shock as the shadows collapsed, seeing several people with large crossbows enter the dorm.

Junpei and Yukari crumpled to the ground after being released and the newcomers spent no time in picking them up and taking them to the limo.

“Wait, who are you?” Akihiko asked, running towards them. Koromaru followed him as Ken and Fuuka stopped on the steps, looking at the scene in confusion.

“We work with the Kirijo Group and were advised to come here by our temporary leader. A lot of strange things have taken place lately and we needed to make sure that Miss Kirijo and her friends were okay. Please, follow us, all of you,” the one carrying Junpei explained.

The three kids and their dog followed, entering the limo.

“Is this all of you?” One of them asked Akihiko.

“We have three on the third floor,” Akihiko replied.

“Good, we’ve already got conformation that they’ve been recovered. Let’s be off then,” They answered, closing the car doors as the last fighter got in.

The limo took off at an impressive speed, rounding a corner.

“I’m sure you have questions.”

Akihiko could only nod.

 

Over the roar of the helicopter, Minato and Mitsuru interrogated the group.

“How are you all… well, here? Why haven’t you transmogrified, it’s the Dark Hour?” Minato started.

“Before Miss Kirijo’s father passed, he figured that he needed a small team to keep the mansion safe while Mitsuru was growing up. He spent a lot of time trying to find people who wouldn’t change during the Dark Hour and hired them to work for him. Obviously, they took the night shift and watched over the mansion at night to make sure no shadows broke in and to keep the area safe. We were never disbanded, even after you brought S.E.E.S together,” the man answered. “By the way, my name is Leonard, Leonard Hanes, how do you do?”

“How is this helicopter moving? Did you replicate the Plume of Dusk to power it? You said there’s an automobile as well?” Aigis asked next.

“Yes, our scientists have been working very hard to create generators and motors so we can get certain things to work during the Dark Hour. They’ve all been successful. I can see that you have a bit of damage as well, but we can fix that up when we arrive,” Leonard answered.

“Where are we going?” Mitsuru said.

Leonard smiled. “Well, where else? We’re headed to the Kirijo residence.”

“Is there any way we can get into contact with the others right now?” Mitsuru said.

Leonard handed her a walkie talkie.

 

The questions were much of the same in the limo, with almost the same answers.

“Where are we going?”

“We have a cargo boat that we will drive onto. We’ll make it to the Kirijo mansion in less than an hour.”

“How are so many of you not transmogrified.”

“We are a special team put together by Miss Kirijo’s father before he passed.”

Akihiko looked over to Junpei and Yukari, who were leaned back on the seats, getting bandaged up.

“Will they be okay?” He asked.

“They are in really bad shape,” One of the nurses responded. “We’ll be able to keep them in a stable condition until they can get better treatment at the mansion.”

“Do you have any idea about what’s happening with the Dark Hour. About why it hasn’t ended?” Ken said.

“Not yet, but we were hoping to all get together to exchange information once we regroup,” one responded.

The crackling static sound of a walkie talkie interrupted any further questions.

What Akihiko could only assume to be the squad leader pulled out the walkie talkie from her pocket.

“Any problems, Leonard?” She said.

_“This is Mitsuru Kirijo, I’d like to speak to one of my teammates,”_ the voice over the device said.

The girl sputtered. “R-right away Miss Kirijo!” She thrust it into Akihiko’s hands.

“Mitsuru?”

_“Akihiko! How is everyone?”_

“I’m fine, so are Fuuka, Ken and Koromaru. Yukari and Junpei are in bad shape, but they told me that they’ll be able to keep them alive until they can get proper help at the mansion.”

Fuuka leaned over to speak in the mic.

“Are you all okay? We didn’t see you leave.”

_“Yes, the three of us made it out. None of us are injured too badly. We’ll be able to talk more in-depth when we all regroup,”_

“Alright,” Akihiko said.


	5. Chapter 5

Once everyone made it to the mansion, each member of S.E.E.S was rushed into the small hospital inside.

They were given a thorough check-up and plenty of painkillers, all except Aigis, who was deemed fine and sent to the lab for a face fix.

Minato was one of the first ones out, and sat patiently on one of the many velvet couches in the living room, sipping on some sort of fancy tea and nibbling on sandwiches that had been offered. Truthfully, he wasn’t very hungry, and was more concerned with asking anyone who walked in questions about his team, how they were doing, and when they would be ready to come out.

Eventually, Koromaru and Akihiko came out next. Minato sighed in relief at the sight of them and Koromaru slumped down tiredly on the seat next to him.

Akihiko fell over onto the couch and let out a deep breath, closing his eyes and saying, “Those painkillers are strong, my sides feel numb and I feel like I could fall asleep standing up.” Both boys chuckled at the lame joke and another cup of tea was brought in for Akihiko.

“Do you know anything about the others? I haven’t been able to get much out of the nurses,” Minato asked.

“I know that Fuuka, Yukari and Junpei are in some sort of extensive care room. Mitsuru and Ken have minimal injuries, so they should be out soon. I don’t know about Aigis,” Akihiko said.

Minato raised his eyebrows. “What happened to Fuuka?”

“I guess when she was attacked in her room, she got a lot of that shadow slime in her system and its causing a lot of damage. I think she’s gotten some sort of poison issue, but that’s all I’ve been able to gather.”

Mitsuru and Ken walked out next with several bandages and ice packs. They sat on the chairs around the coffee table and joined the wait.

Aigis joined a short while afterwards, her skin back on her face and the light in her eyes no longer dim. The rest of the Kirijo group joined them afterwards.

“While your other friends are getting fixed up, I figured we should start talking. They’ll be fine, but they need to stay overnight so we can keep an eye on them,” The head doctor said.

A woman Akihiko recognized as the one from the limo stood up, along with Leonard.

“Hello, my name is Leonard Hanes and this is my second in command, Terri Genar. We lead a group of workers hired by the Kirijo family to fight any shadows that threaten the Kirijo residence. We were instructed by Miss Kirijo’s father explicitly to trust Mitsuru’s leadership and let her team fight the larger battles, so that’s why you’re only hearing of us now.”

S.E.E.S stayed quiet, prompting Leonard to go on.

“I think we all know what the biggest problem is right now, what with the Dark Hour not ending and all, but truthfully, we do not know much of what has been going on lately. It would be of great help if you could recount all that has happened on the main land.”

Everyone exchanged looks, wondering who should start and where to start.

“We’ve lost track of time, so I couldn’t tell you how long ago it started, but so far we’ve only had some run-ins with some strong shadows. We just finished fighting a large shadow only a few hours ago and when we got back to the dorm there were shadows inside and that’s when everything started going bad. The first shadow we fought was this large blob that ate everything in its path. Most of us almost died to that thing, but we found out that it was weak to water and finished it off,” Minato started.

“Then we had to fight two giant eyes earlier, which was pretty strange. They tried to hypnotize us all but we beat them. Then we found out that they had children when our dorm got invaded. That’s all that has happened so far,” Minato finished.

“So that’s what that was!” Terri exclaimed. “We caught some big energy readings on our radar, just like the full moon shadows you guys beat. When the first one went away, we figured you killed it, but the Dark Hour didn’t end. We decided to pack up and head over there when another large energy appeared and we stayed to monitor it. When it died out, we gathered our stuff and headed over.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Aigis began, directing the attention to her. “And I believe that based on the shadows we have fought already, the next large ones to appear will be centered around the human anatomy. We already defeated a stomach-like shadow and a pair of eyes, so I think it’s safe to assume that any next ones will follow that theme.”

“That’s possible, but what I want to know is why. Why are there large shadows appearing so soon in succession? Do they have anything to do with why the Dark Hour hasn’t ended?” Leonard asked.

“I think it’s safe to assume that they have a correlation, but what I’m most concerned about is how many more will appear. If killing these things doesn’t end the Dark Hour, what will? Another thing that’s been eating at my mind is what if this is like what happened with Ikutsuki? He told us to kill the large shadows and instead of ending the Dark Hour, he said it would bring The Fall,” Mitsuru interjected.

At the sound of Ikutsuki’s name the room went quiet for a moment. There were too many variables, it was hard to pinpoint any answers.

“Maybe we should take a step back and just start on smaller problems and focus on trying to find more information,” Akihiko said. “We could definitely take advantage of the Dark Hour to fix up the buildings that the shadows tore up. For example, the police station, because if you think that Officer Kurosawa will be peeved about the weapons, he’ll be outraged about the station being tore up. Cleaning up the dorm isn’t a bad idea considering people will be asking us a lot of questions when we get everything fixed.”

Mitsuru nodded. “That’s a good idea, usually we just try to cover anything that comes up, but after all that’s happened, it will be hard to find an excuse for the destruction caused. I’m sure my father has some documents about shadows, specifically the full moon shadows and their traits filed away that might give us some ideas as to what might be happening now. Maybe these new shadows aren’t all too different than the ones we’ve fought in the past.”

With a plan in mind, Mitsuru only had one more thing to ask. “I would like to see the others now. You said that they are in stable condition, but I’d like to see them myself. Yamagishi should at least be feeling fine by now, correct?”

The head doctor spoke up. “I can’t permit you to go back there just yet. We’ve been refusing you because there’s a lot of activity going on back there. We don’t want anyone to be in the way of the surgeons.”

Everyone raised their eyebrows.

“Surgery?” Ken was the first to get the word out.

“Well, yes. It should still be going on in fact. Takeba, Yamagishi and Iori are their names, correct? Let’s see…” The woman held up a clipboard and lifted the papers on top to look at something.

“Yes, well, I’ll start with Yukari Takeba. Multiple bites, several deep cuts in her arms and what appeared to be a stinger from some sort of bug was lodged in her thigh,” S.E.E.S shared a dumbfounded look. Since when did the centipedes have stingers?

“Not to mention the terrible shape that her left shoulder was in. That was the worst of it and we pulled a fang out of her shoulder. Next, Junpei Iori,” the lady continued. “His right shoulder and the lower, right part of his neck was in much of the same shape as Miss Takeba’s. We also found deep bruising on both sides of his stomach and chest, likely from those shadows that had them bound from what I’ve heard, but what was most interesting was the bullet.”

Knowing looks went around the group.

“We found a bullet lodged in his chest, near the back through an x-ray. Now, this may not be any of my business, but I’d like to know how a bullet got into his chest without him dying _and_ how there is no sign of a scar or entry point anywhere on his body whatsoever.” She spoke with an edge to her voice, a twinge of exasperation and disbelief mixed together.

Without skipping a beat or waiting for an answer, she started talking again. “I understand that you have your Personas that you can use to heal each other with, but I’ve been a doctor for over twenty years and I know for a fact that based upon where that bullet is, he should’ve died from the hit. He should be _dead_. Again, I know it’s not my place to ask, but I must know, _how_.”

Her tone shifted with each word. She sounded tired, angry, flabbergasted and excited all at once. Everyone looked at Mitsuru for the answer, unsure whether she wanted to share the information or not.

“Since you asked, and based upon your profession, I suppose you have the right to know, but I’d like to tell you about it in private,” Mitsuru said. She caught a few of the other people with lab coats on in the corner of her eye deflate a little, as if they were just as curious and wanted to know.

The woman looked relieved to be given a sound answer, and went back to her clipboard.

“Lastly, we have Fuuka Yamagishi. The reason Yamagishi needed the surgery was due to the excess levels of shadow ichor in her system. There was a lot of strain on her throat that we found that looked like something had been forced down, and we concluded that we needed to put her under to get it all out. We don’t know what kind of side effects it could have on her, but so far, she’s only been sick and we’ve found small traces of poisoning in her blood. She’s been given the right medicine so she should be fine for now. You won’t have to worry about any of them, I promise that the best doctors we have are working on them.”

S.E.E.S finally let out their breath. It seemed their friends would be fine after all.

“I have one more thing to say.”

Everyone looked back towards the doctor.

“You all show signs of serious fatigue, and unfortunately, due to these circumstances, I’m going to have to give you sleeping pills to ensure that you get at least ten hours of sleep tonight. What with what you have been doing out there, you’ll need it. Your bodies need to time to rest up and heal, so I’ll be sure to watch each and every one of you swallow them, am I clear?”

She was very commanding as she spoke and her voice was reminiscent of the way Mitsuru spoke whenever she was angry. S.E.E.S nodded in understanding, but Mitsuru seemed cold.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I must demand that in the event that my teammates are placed in stable condition after the surgery, if it so happens to be in the middle of the night, I must be awoken as to check on them. I haven’t been able to see them for the past hour, and as you can imagine, I’m sure, I’m harboring a lot of stress about it,” everyone in the room shrunk back, the focus on the two ladies as they silently battled in a glaring contest.

“I hope that I will be able to put your stress to ease when I say that your cohorts are fine. I understand your concerns, Miss Kirijo, and I understand the power you have over me as the new leader of the Kirijo Group, but I must put my foot down. You may see them when both you and the three are well enough to. I would be going against my duties as a doctor if I did otherwise,” the room was so cold that Akihiko swore that their breaths misted. Leonard looked like he wanted to step in, but a sideways glance by the doctor made him take a step back to his original place.

Mitsuru had a look on her face that made it seem like she would keep arguing, but instead, she broke their staring contest and sighed. “Whatever you say, Miss-?” Mitsuru’s voice had a sharp edge.

“Issute. Doctor Satari Issute,” Satari answered. The room was still and freezing now, a small needle was the only thing needed to crack the icy air. Doctor Satari was just brave enough to do it herself.

“Perhaps you should get to bed now. I’m sure you can lead your friends to your rooms?” She asked, all the edge from her voice gone. The room’s tension melted away as the warmth returned in a flash.

“Yes, I can do that,” Mitsuru said back.

“Great! I’ll get the pills. You won’t have to worry about anything for tonight, just get some rest,” Doctor Issute strode over to the door where the small hospital was and held the door open a crack, leaning in to grab something close to her. She came back with a handful of plastic casings lined with white pills.

She handed out the pills for each member and walked backwards, sitting down on the arm of one of the chairs. “Once you swallow them they’ll be effective in up to twenty minutes, so you can take that time to get to bed,” She said.

There was water on the table that the kids used to swallow the pills, some brand name that Akihiko recognized. He’d taken some of these when he had gotten sick as a kid.

The other people in the room, Leonard, Terri, and the other fighters, said their goodnights as they left. Doctor Issute finally went back into the hospital when all the pills had been consumed. Koromaru was already fast asleep, not in the need for any pills, and Ken agreed that he’d take him with himself tonight.

S.E.E.S trudged up a flight of stairs that seemed endless and walked down a hallway to a series of doors. Mitsuru lazily gestured to them, already tired.

“Take a room and get some sleep,” She slurred.

Everyone filed into separate rooms and laid down, all except one.

Minato took the pills out of his pocket. He had only pretended to swallow them. He knew that he could get himself to sleep without them, but he needed answers.

He needed to visit the Velvet Room, something that he hadn’t succeeded in doing for the past several days.

Minato stared blankly at the ceiling, trying to focus his brain into the mindset he needed in order to get there.

It took longer than he felt it should have and Minato blinked his eyes in rapid succession as he tried to unblur the movement in front of him.

The elevator was still giving off its usual hum as it ascended upwards to its unknown destination, but something was missing, and Minato could already tell what it was before the picture in front of him became clear.

He was the only one in the elevator.

It was just him in the chair, no Igor, no Elizabeth in sight. Minato looked around frantically for the two. Something was seriously wrong if they weren’t here, but before he could speak his mind out loud, the elevator stopped.

It didn’t slow down as if it had reached its floor, but rather as if time had suddenly ceased to exist. A weight crashed into Minato that sent him flying out of his seat and out of the Velvet Room.

He was laying on the soft bed in Mitsuru’s mansion, ejected from the Velvet Room by force.

He didn’t need to try again to know that he wouldn’t get back in.

Exhausted, Minato passed out on the bed.

.

He had the worst case of bedhead he’d ever seen when he woke up, but Akihiko was pleased to find that he had finally slept enough so that he could think straight. He was still very sore from yesterday’s experiences, but his body was in great shape, so he knew he could heal fast.

Akihiko left the room, peeking out into the hallway. The lights were finally on, a telltale sign for him that it must’ve been some sort of morning time for them to get up by. The other rooms’ doors looked undisturbed, so without much to do, Akihiko jogged down the hallway to the staircase.

There was a high chance someone would already be awake, although he was unsure who or where, so for now he wandered around the house. He’d been here before many times, brought here by Mitsuru with Shinji when it had just been them. He figured the best place to start would be the living room.

He jogged down the steps they had walked up before bed and rounded the corner, peeking into the room. Empty. Maybe the second living room would be better.

Akihiko jogged down a few more hallways, looking through each open doorway he passed until the smell of coffee stopped him. The kitchen was ahead of him on the left, so instead of taking the right path to the other living room, he walked over to the kitchen doorway.

Doctor Issute and a few of her nurses were around the coffee pot, talking idly about something that Akihiko didn’t care to listen to.

They watched as he grabbed a mug and poured himself some coffee, sitting on a bar stool away from their group. He saw out of the corner of his eye the doctor whisper something to the nurses that caused them to go, leaving just him and her.

She refilled her cup, though Akihiko could see that it was already almost full, and said, “I hope I didn’t come across too harshly last night.”

Akihiko had to chuckle at that. “I think it’s a bit too late for that,” he told her.

The doctor walked over until she sat in front of him. She placed her mug on the counter and said, “If you had been in my shoes, you would’ve done the same. Believe me, when I took a close look at all of you, I was horrified. The only reason I acted the way I did was out of concern, though it came out harsh because when I was trying to help you all, you were still fighting. I’m quite ashamed of that argument I had with Miss Kirijo, I just couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let it rest just for a few hours.”

Akihiko hummed in agreement. He did understand why Mitsuru had acted the way she had, because he himself had felt the same way and he was sure everyone else did too. He took a long drag from his cup and replied, “I’m glad you’re telling me this, but I think Mitsuru might need it more than me.”

This time Satari agreed, chugging her coffee and placing the empty mug in the sink.

“My nurses and I were taking a break, we’re off shift soon. We were working on your friends for the better part of the night and they’ve held up. You can go see them now. You can wake up your other friends if you want to. Personally, I’d advise you to let them sleep in a bit longer, though I doubt you’ll take to that advice?” Doctor Issute stopped in the doorway as she was leaving to speak, looking at Akihiko expectantly.

He chuckled again, saying back to her, “Mitsuru would have my head on a plate if I didn’t wake her up.” He finished up his own cup and grabbed another to fill for said companion.

“Very well. It shouldn’t be too hard to find them, you just have to go through the doors and walk to the end of the hallway and make a left turn. We put them all in the same room. Please don’t rile them up or try to move them, they may be stable, but that doesn’t mean they can just get up and run a mile,” with that, the doctor was gone with a wave of her hand, her flats clicking on the smooth flooring down the hall.

Akihiko waited a few moments as the steps receded and a door sounded. He shifted the new cup of coffee in his hands and placed his own empty one in the sink.

He trudged back down the halls and up the stairs to their rooms, going to Mitsuru first. He knocked lightly and waited for movement.

“Mitsuru?” He whispered. He cracked open the door and a grin spread across his face.

She was sprawled horizontal on her bed, hair mussed up wildly and what he thought to be drool coming from the corner of her lips. Akihiko nudged her.

“Mitsuru?” He tried again. She groaned.

“Time to wake up, we finally have coffee,” he took one of her hands and pressed it against the warm mug. She stirred, waking up from the touch. In a half drowsy daze, she took a long swig from the mug and clumsily placed it on her side dresser, muttering what Akihiko could only chalk up to be a blessing in French.

She brushed back her hair and sat up, attention now drawn to Akihiko.

“Sleep well?” He joked.

“I hope you didn’t just wake me up to patronize me,” She grumbled in response.

Akihiko laughed at that. “No, I woke you up to tell you that were allowed to see Yukari and the others now.”

Mitsuru didn’t respond, instead choosing to take another drag from her coffee. She stood up after a few more moments.

“Wake the others,” she told him. “I’ll be ready in a minute, just get the others and meet me downstairs.”

Akihiko left her room, jokingly turning on the light as he left, getting what amounted to be a hiss of disapproval from Mitsuru. It certainly might take them awhile to get them used to light again.

He went to Ken’s room next, who was curling up in a tiny ball, cuddling Koromaru. Both were softly snoring, and Koromaru barely showed any signs of recognition that someone had entered.

“Ken,” Akihiko whispered. “Wake up.”

Ken muttered in his sleep, but Koromaru got up and stretched out on the bed. The dog walked across the bed to receive a pat by Akihiko before getting right up in Ken’s face to lick the boy awake. Ken waved his hands in protest and tried to cover up.

“Koromaru, stop! No! I’m trying to sleep!” He picked up a pillow and covered his face to keep Koromaru’s tongue away. Koro growled and pawed at the obstruction in his way.

“Ken, we can see the others now. You can sleep in if you want to, but were about to go see how the others are,” Akihiko tried. Ken removed the pillow and looked up at him.

“Akihiko? Oh right…” Ken got up and scratched Koro behind the ears to get the dog to stop the assault on his face. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Akihiko nodded, leaving the room and walking straight over to Minato’s.

“Minato, wake up-” A cold hand covered his mouth before he could continue.

Aigis was right next to him, standing right beside the door, almost like she was guarding it.

“Hush. You will wake Minato,” She said in a voice that wasn’t very quiet herself.

“Aigis? I thought you were supposed to sleep in the lab?” Akihiko asked.

“I stayed in there for a little while, but I did not feel comfortable there. I wished to make sure that everyone was safe, so I stayed in here. Why do you wish to wake Minato up?” She said.

“I’m waking everyone up, the doctor said that we can see the others now. Could you please get your hand off of my face?”

“I see. Then I shall wake him for you, do not worry.”

Akihiko rolled his eyes. “Alright, just bring him down to the living room we were in before, we’re all going to go in together.”

With that, he left, heading down the steps back to the living room.

“Minato, it is time to wake up and start the day. Akihiko has just informed me-” Minato was already up.

“I heard you guys, you don’t talk very quietly,” he said. “Can’t you lower the volume on your voice or something?”

“I would not need to right now, for my task is to wake you up. It appears I have completed my task. Time to start the day,” Aigis said, Minato pulling her out of the room down the steps. Everyone else followed them and they met Akihiko in the living room. They headed through the doors with Akihiko leading the way to the rooms.

They opened the door, stepping into a white tile room with four beds on both sides of the room. Each bed was surrounded by curtains, but Fuuka’s were open.

On her bed, Fuuka was sitting up, clutching a cup of warm liquid. She turned her head when the others walked in, perking up a little.

“Good morning Yamagishi. How are you feeling?” Mitsuru started.

Fuuka set her cup down before she spoke. “I’m feeling fine, I suppose. They surprised me when they said I needed to be put under for surgery, but I feel a lot better than I did last night. I think the antibiotics are working well,” She turned to the other two sleeping figures across from her. “They haven’t been up since we all saw them last as far as I know, but the doctors said they’re fine.”

Akihiko nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

A comfortable quiet followed as the students found chairs and sat around the beds, hoping their companions would wake soon. Fuuka took a sip of what looked to be soup, Minato thought on closer inspection.

“What’s been going on?” Fuuka piped up after everyone settled down.

“Nothing much yet. We talked and exchanged some information, and I’m going to talk more in-depth with them later,” Mitsuru said.

“I see. Do they have any idea about what’s been going on?” Fuuka asked. Mitsuru shook her head.

“No. Unfortunately, both of our groups don’t have much information, but we were talking about making a plan of what to do next. We also have some new assets at our disposal now that we’re here,” Mitsuru said. “Will you be able to leave your bed soon?”

This time Fuuka shook her head. “No. The nurses said that they want to watch us all for a few days, so we’re going to be stuck in here for a while.”

A male nurse stepped into the room right after she talked. “Miss Kirijo? When you have the time, you’re wanted in Doctor Issute’s office,” he said, looking towards her for conformation.

Mitsuru acknowledged him, replying with, “Very well. I’ll be there soon.” The nurse left as quick as he came.

“I suppose the doctor wants to talk about a certain injury. I won’t keep her waiting, I suppose. I’ll visit you later, Yamagishi. Hopefully the others will be awake when I return, yes?” Mitsuru said, walking over to the door.

“I’ll ask the nurse when he comes back in,” Fuuka said back, watching Mitsuru leave. A few moments passed with idle conversation and an explanation to what Mitsuru was doing was given before Ken’s stomach growled. Fuuka laughed.

“You can all go get something to eat if you’d like. You don’t have to stay here because of me, I’m fine on my own,” she said.

“That’s not a bad idea, are you hungry?” Minato said.

“Not really, and I don’t think I’m allowed to eat anything solid yet anyways. Don’t worry about me, just go on!” She waved her arms as they all filed out, leaving her in quiet again. She sighed and stared out the small window, looking towards the beach. She hoped they’d find answers soon.

.

In Issute’s office, said doctor sat behind her desk with Mitsuru in a chair in front of it. The good doctor had apologized for her behavior from the previous day, and the pair had made up, Mitsuru taking some of the blame for her own reckless attitude. They were deep in discussion over the events in November, how Junpei had been shot and revived. Doctor Issute could hardly believe any of it. As Mitsuru finished accounting the tale, Satari sat up in her seat suddenly.

“That’s right, there’s one more thing we needed. As you already know, we do shadow research here and keep a record of all the shadows you’ve previously fought. We’d like if you would put time aside to add more information to the files. Well, to be honest, it doesn’t have to be you, it can be anyone from your group. One of us in particular wanted a retelling of all the shadows you’ve fought so far. They’re keeping a record just in case you’ll need it in the future,” She said, pulling out a piece of paper and writing on it with pen. “Here’s the room they’re in, you can go visit them or send one of your own to go do it. They were very eager to take note of the shadows.”

“I could do it, but I feel that Yamagishi would be most beneficial for such a report. She is our support, and she knows the shadows’ weaknesses and traits the best. I wouldn’t want to bother her though,” Mitsuru trailed off. The doctor nodded.

“I’ll tell them about Yamagishi and when to expect a time to speak with her then,” The doctor made another note and taped it to her desktop screen. “Now, where’d we leave off?”

.

In the kitchen, Minato bobbed his head to the music from his mp3 player as he made some eggs. S.E.E.S were all pitching in to help make breakfast for themselves, and the kitchen was bustling with activity. Akihiko was cooking some bacon on another stove out of Minato’s way and Aigis was chopping fruit up into a bowl. Koromaru was dancing around people’s legs, sniffing at the yummy smelling food and begging for scraps. Akihiko slipped him a piece of bacon when he thought no-one was looking. Ken got everyone some drinks and gathered some plates and silverware as the food was being plated. They all sat down to their food and made casual jokes, almost as if everything was actually normal.

After they all ate their fill, with dog food provided to Koromaru after enough searching in the numerous kitchen pantries, they all made their way to the front of the mansion, looking out at the greenery that turned into beach. The city was barely visible in the distance, and with no lights it was even harder to make out the shapes of the buildings.

“When do you think the next shadow will come?” Aigis asked.

“That’s hard to say, considering we don’t even know that much about them yet. I hope that it won’t be anytime soon though, Fuuka and the others still need to recover, and I’d prefer if we had our whole team with us to fight,” Akihiko replied.

A murmur of agreement went through the group as they took one last glance out the window and walked away, back towards the other rooms in the mansion.

.

It really only took two more days before the residents of the hospital finally were up and about, and after getting assigned their own rooms out of the hospital and getting caught up with any information that they had missed out on, Fuuka, Yukari and Junpei sat in one of the living rooms with the others. They sported bandages on their bodies with visible scars, things that would be gone with due time.

Everyone else was relieved once they were up and about, and although Yukari and Junpei were quiet at first, they got back into the groove of things quick. Junpei’s jokes and laughter could be heard from the next room over and Yukari’s bubbling voice joined in with the other girls in whatever conversation took hold at the time.

When the three days had passed, Mitsuru went with Fuuka to see the shadow researcher, explaining to Fuuka about how she should act and what to tell them. Fuuka was very nervous at first, but reassuring from Mitsuru calmed her down.

They were surprised to find Terri there, introducing herself as not only the second in command on the battlefield, but also the lead researcher tasked with keeping an orderly set of documents about each shadow, from big to small. Terri was easy to get along with, and Mitsuru went to excuse herself from the room when she and Fuuka had gotten deep in conversation, Fuuka listing off what she remembered and Terri typing everything down at an impressive speed. Her hands flew around the keyboard, adding every detail as if she were writing word for word what Fuuka was saying.

Before Mitsuru was able to leave, Terri stopped her and held a hand to pause Fuuka as if she had a remote in her hand.

“Oi, wait Miss Kirijo! There’s one more thing. I have something for you and your teammates to help you out in battle, have everyone meet me here in thirty minutes, kay?” Terri gestured wildly, animating her words with crazy hand gestures.

Mitsuru simply gave a short nod and left, walking down the hall to the others. It didn’t take long before Terri declared the research effort done when Fuuka had to spend more than five minutes trying to rack her brain for any other different shadows, so she resorted to casual conversation, though it was more one person rambling with the other listening.

Fuuka couldn’t explain it, but being around Terri felt different. She couldn’t tell if it was a positive or negative different, but it made her uneasy. Terri was just so strange, very different from other people that Fuuka knew and talked to, even though the number of people she regularly talked to wasn’t very high.

Perhaps it was just due to her profession. After all, she studied shadows and fought them for living. That must be the cause of such a strange personality, for it seemed that she was one of a few number who did the actual research. Which reminded Fuuka…

“What’s it like dedicating your life to studying shadows?” Fuuka asked when Terri finally broke her speech pattern for air.

Terri stopped and considered the question before answering. “It’s strange, but that should be obvious. I feel like I know the shadows on a personal level, and it makes it weirdly emotional to kill them. I’m sure when you fight, all you think of is weakness and all that, but it’s different in my case. I feel like shadows could be tamed or, maybe they could be taught to be peaceful. It sounds crazy, I know, but from someone who studies shadows every day, it seems a heck of a lot better than killing off their entire species,” Terri picked up a water bottle on her desk and took a long drink, but there was a distinct smell coming from it that wasn’t water. Swallowing whatever she had, Terri added, “Maybe you should try to act out in a peaceful way before killing them immediately is all I’m saying, alright?”

The time came when S.E.E.S all gathered in the room, Terri turning back into her more social self after the serious tone in the conversation before. She led the group to a back door in the office space, through a room filed with filing cabinets labeled with letters. Peeking in, it was clear it was all shadow information. Mitsuru hung back, making a mental note to herself which drawers to look into when she would eventually come back later to do some research of her own.

The group went through yet another door that housed a staircase leading down into a sort of basement. The steps were old and dusty, and Junpei got Aigis to help him mess with Yukari using a spider web. A red handprint was faded on his face only a few moments afterwards, but his grin showed no regret as they continued down.

When they reached the bottom, shock took hold of their emotions.

The room widened out to reveal a large space filled with test tubes and glass panels. Live shadows shrieked as they tore at the glass, not even making a slight crack as they tried in vain to escape.

New shadows that S.E.E.S hadn’t even seen before were in some of the cages, one in particular standing out like a sore thumb.

They were literal shadows in the sense that they held the form of a human shape across the ground, shifting in the spotlight provided to them in their habitat. They had weird human features about them in more than just their shape however. Their eyes matched perfectly with a human’s, just more strained as if they didn’t have any eyelids and they were always glaring at whatever they looked at. They also had human teeth, showing off big toothy grins to the group as they passed by, waving from their spots stuck on the ground.

They didn’t take their eyes off the humans as they passed, their grins too wide to be considered normal. They shifted their shape to match each member of S.E.E.S, one clearly the shape of Koromaru and Ken, and another getting even the detail of Junpei’s hat onto its skin.

S.E.E.S eyed them warily back but Terri paid no mind, fixated on something right next to the shadow cage.

She pulled out several sets of objects from a small drawer and set them on top.

“I have a few things here, but I’ll start with these,” she picked at nine small squares in a pile. “These are trackers. When these are on, we’ll be able to track where each of you are at any time, so we’ll be able to find you if necessary. It’s just a safety precaution, but we would advise that they be used.”

She handed out the nine trackers to each person, Aigis helping Koromaru put it on his collar. Terri turned back to the desk.

“This,” she paused, taking the object into her hand. “Is a new medication that we ourselves use quite a lot when we fight. It’s like an adrenaline boost, it can help us get enough energy to get to safety when we get hurt too bad. You just swallow it and you’ll be good, and it works fast.”

Terri handed them out as well, though Mitsuru asked to hold onto Koromaru’s instead. They all stared at the two things in their hands with different looks before Akihiko spoke everyone’s mind.

“Listen, these are good and all, but would you mind me asking about _that_?” He gestured with an open palm to the shadows with their large grins still peering in the darkness at the group.

“What about them?” Terri seemed oblivious to what the others were thinking.

“You keep shadows under the building? What if they escape? How did you even get them in there? Why do you need them?” Yukari asked next, raising a concerned tone with each passing question.

“I keep them here to study them. You must admit, they are very interesting, I mean it’s like a whole new species, c’mon!” Terri complained.

Junpei spoke up next, saying, “Have you ever seen a horror movie? I’d bet everything I own that these things are going to escape!”

“I understand that you find shadows interesting and all, but I must agree, I think it is a large hazard in keeping them down here. I’m sure you set aside a lot of steps to ensure safety and precautions to keep them in, but wouldn’t it be better to study them outside and not risk them getting out and killing anyone?” Mitsuru looked down at Terri, who was beginning to look more downtrodden.

“I guess…” She said.

Mitsuru straightened herself before speaking again. “I request that you remove these shadows from the premise when you can set aside the time. Please make sure that you get it done in the next week.”

S.E.E.S walked back up the stairs after thanking Terri once again, following Mitsuru back through both rooms.

Terri sat back on a chair next to the glass cage and let out a relived sigh. She rested her hand on the cool glass, the shadows looking directly at her every move.

“I guess we’ll have to do this sooner than I thought,” Terri said aloud. She stared at her reflection in the glass and for a brief moment, her grin spread a bit too wide, exactly like her friends entrapped in glass.


	6. Chapter 6

Several more days passed with no incident and no large shadow appearances, which was the subject of many silent thank yous throughout the group. Leonard had already planned to send a team to begin fixing up the town, starting with the dorm. S.E.E.S was offered the chance to tag along with them to help, which they accepted seeing as they didn’t have much else to do in the mansion. Leonard had plans to set up a generator so they would have power and extra locks and barricades to prevent another incident from happening, which led to a long stretch of work ahead of them.

The dorm was cleared of shadows when they arrived, and Fuuka made sure to double and triple check for anything at all. The shadows had all cleared the area, and there was no sign of any of the slime shadows, so they began work on fixing the damage.

Not even thirty minutes in, shadows arrived. They weren’t a problem, what with the extra firepower provided by the Kirijo workers, but it was concerning how fast they came. Everyone silently got to work a bit faster after the battle was over.

Fuuka kept Juno out on the first floor, keeping her mind’s eye open for any particular movements under the watch of several people at a time. The others helped install the new doors and locks to their dorm while Leonard worked on the generator.

They had everything up in three hours, not cleaned of the blood stains and dirt, but safe. Everyone agreed to take a short rest before moving down the street to the police station and anywhere else that might need it.

Walking down the street was an experience, especially since they hadn’t been particularly paying attention to their surroundings while being chased around by shadows the first few days. The streets were trashed, what with rogue shadows scavenging for food or knocking over trash cans while they were outside of Tartarus. The shadows seemed desperate to eat, because the group came across some small shadow carcasses that looked to have been hunted down and killed by their own kind.

It was unsettling to see shadows cannibalizing their own kind, and slight chills went down the backs of the group. If the shadows were hungry enough to be acting like this, then they might be in a more dangerous situation than originally estimated.

A large roar made everyone freeze in their spots. It was far away, yet the echo it gave off made it seem like it surrounded the group. Fuuka was immediately ready, trying to get herself to move faster for support.

She knelt down for only a few seconds before she shook her head and Juno disappeared.

“It’s far from us, but it has a very powerful presence. Not like the large shadows we fought before, but a lot stronger than the normal ones we’ve seen. We should stay clear of the monorail tracks, that’s where it is,” she said.

The group unfroze from their positions and collectively sighed with relief.

“Let’s keep going forward. Yamagishi, try to keep track of that one, we don’t want to get near it,” Mitsuru told her, and led the group to get moving again at a quicker pace.

When they finally arrived at the police station, Junpei and Akihiko sharing an uncomfortable glance due to the bad memories, it looked the exact same as when they had left it. The glass windows were cracked and inside, papers were strewn about. Yukari cupped her hands to her face to look through the remaining glass that still stuck to the building, scratches on the wallpaper catching her eye as well as a smashed chair.

The Kirijo group had brought along with them the supplies they guessed they would need, whether that was extra glass panels or a simple box of tools. They knew exactly what they needed to do when it came to the repairs, which left S.E.E.S with not much to do but follow simple directions and watch for shadows. After fixing up the front room where Officer Kurosawa usually stayed for their questionably legal business, Junpei made a show of placing the money they had left before back on the desk as the others moved to the back, fixing up the damage in the hallway.

They were halfway through fixing one of the back rooms when a shadow cry hit the air.

It started with a low rumble that was strong enough to make the ground vibrate, and grew enough for everyone to stop what they were doing and look to Fuuka.

Their support was sat in a ball, straining her face in concentration as she tried to read her surroundings. The roar stopped short, its echo still resounding through the sky as sharp and quick grunts replaced it, the echoes not as prominent through the new noise. It sounded like it was fighting something.

The thought of something being strong enough to hurt whatever was making the loud sound filled Minato’s mind with concern, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it as a deafening smash came from down the street they were on and Fuuka getting up and rushing to the door with a quick and urgent, “Hurry!”.

As efficiently as the Kirijo group fixed up the buildings, they packed up their things and followed S.E.E.S outside at an impressive speed. At a cross section near the end of the street, a large shadow was sprawled across the pavement, looking feral and favoring its right side as if it had been hurt badly. It snarled at what was in front of it, though whatever it could’ve been was obscured by the buildings that lined the road.

“Let’s move, we haven’t been noticed yet,” Akihiko said, holding the door open for everyone as they crept out.

Mitsuru turned to Fuuka. “How did it get so close without you noticing?”

“I was tracking it the whole time, and it was far away from us just a minute ago. Then next thing I know it flew across the city. I think it was thrown by whatever is attacking it,” She answered.

Meanwhile, the injured shadow let out another cry as it charged down the road towards its attacker, but was flung back again, this time followed by the larger mass that kept up the attack.

The larger one had a human look to it, but that was as far as it could be compared. Its two white eyes were set vertically on its face, contrasting against the black swirls on its body, and its fingers were sharp like claws.

The slightly smaller shadow had the same black pattern against its body. It didn’t exactly suit the look of one animal in particular. The shadow was down on four legs with a round face and a large set of teeth. That seemed to be the one constant thing in these shadows, the large teeth that 90% of them had.

The human shadow picked up its victim and dug its claws into its neck while the other shadow bit down into the attacker’s arm. The smaller one then used its hind legs to kick off of the building it was backed up against to throw itself and the other shadow to the ground as it tried to bite the shadow’s neck.

The parade of good guys started sprinting down the road back the way they came, hoping to get to the docks or at least back to the dorm.

Minato looked behind at the scene and stopped himself, causing everyone around him to follow suit.

“C’mon Minato! What are you doing!” Yukari yelled, dashing up to him to grab hold of his arm.

Before she could try to pull him away, he spoke up, saying back to her, “What about them?” He pointed to the numerous coffins standing on the sidewalk. “If we leave these shadows here, they’re going to crush all those people. We have to do something.”

Everyone looked back in forth from Minato to Mitsuru, expecting the older girl to speak her mind in defiance, but she shook her head as if she were arguing with herself and then nodded at Minato.

“He’s right,” She said.

Minato ordered everyone to line up, getting the Kirijo group to stand at the back with their crossbows. He stood in front of everyone with his evoker pressed to the side of his head, waiting for the right moment.

The ‘right moment’ he decided was the moment when the animal-shadow’s back was to them, wherein he sent Orpheus loose to line up a hit while it was distracted.

“Start with the smaller one, it’s already injured!” He called out, running a few steps forward with his sword and evoker out as Orpheus slammed his lyre into the shadow’s back.

Fuuka already had Juno out, scanning both enemies for their health and weaknesses as the Kirijo Group let loose a storm of arrows perfectly lined up into the four-legged shadow’s head.

Akihiko and Aigis rushed ahead next, summoning Caesar and Athena to pummel the target into the air. The shadow turned around in time to hit Orpheus out of the way, dodging Caesar’s attack in the process. It wasn’t lucky enough to get out of the way of Athena’s spear, and the shadow found itself up in the air with a large gash in its belly dripping with shadow fluid.

Isis went next, choosing to simply ram its horns into the shadow instead of using its wind abilities. The attack was rewarded with a sickening sound of flesh being torn and the desperate cry of the shadow as it slid off the horns and tumbled to the ground.

That was all it took, and Fuuka confirmed it was dead before it even hit the pavement. She called out to the others that the second shadow was weak to piercing attacks, which gave Aigis the motivation to try to land another hit.

Athena made its move to try to turn and skewer it through its back, but the shadow was too fast and moved out of the way in time. The shadow snatched up a car at its side and tossed it at its attackers in response.

The unexpected move almost made a hit, and most of the group tried to get out of the way or duck. Akihiko summoned Caesar in time to catch the car and place it back on the ground.

The shadow looked unsure of itself, but got down on its claws, arching its back as two more arms erupted from its body with disturbing pops and crunches. It let out a weak hiss and shot out one of its new arms, securing its claw around Yukari.

Yukari screamed in protest, dropping her bow in surprise as the shadow lifted her up to its height and used another one of its arms to pick the car up again.

“Yukari!” Mitsuru yelled as she summoned her Persona. Artemisia aimed her whip and cracked it, wrapping it firmly around the wrist of the arm that held Yukari.

With one of its free hands, the shadow popped open one of the car doors and jerked its wrist to loosen the grip of the whip. Artemisia held firm, so the shadow jerked its arm to the right, knocking the Persona off balance and slamming it into the building on the side.

Yukari struggled to get free as the other people on the road tried different attacks to get the shadow to let her go, but the shadow held firm. It dropped Yukari into the open car door.

Yukari hit her chin on the opening as she fell in, grunting with pain. Her back slammed against the glass that was already cracked from the too-tight grip of the shadow. Pieces of glass rained down on her from the broken car windshield and she struggled to cover her face. Her foot was caught in the steering wheel and the panicked voices of her friends were muffled and frantic.

Outside of the car, a wall of crossbow bolts pelted the shadow, but it paid no mind to the stinging pain. Junpei called out Trismegistus to try to slice away at one of shadow’s limbs, but the Persona was quickly caught and crushed in the palm of its claw.

Minato and Ken made a quick plan to try to knock the shadow over and try to grab the car from its grasp, but the shadow was too fast, and crushed the Personas the same way it had gotten rid of Trismegistus.

The shadow looked as if it was going to throw the car, and S.E.E.S readied themselves to summon their Personas to catch it, but the shadow paused and fixed its eyes at the group with the car still raised over its head. A glimmering object had caught its eye.

In another swift motion, the arm on the opposite side of the one holding the car swiped Juno up from the ground, with a terrified Fuuka inside. S.E.E.S had no time to react to save their support with their focus on Yukari. The shadow peered into the glass at the small human and began to shake Juno as if it were a snow globe.

The force slammed Fuuka into the glass over and over. Her head was bleeding profusely after only a few hits and she was losing her consciousness as each blow shoved her against the glass. The water-like substance in Juno’s glass ball was being stained red by the blood of its user, and it was astounding that Juno hadn’t disappeared after all the blows.

Koromaru attempted to take action next, sending Cerberus to try Mudoon to save their friends. The attack burst to life as dark symbols surrounded the shadow, but it failed to kill the target, who continued to beat Juno on the concrete road.

Only a few more hits against the road caused Juno to finally dissipate. Fuuka hit the ground hard and rolled away from the force, the others rushing over to help her. The shadow scooped her up in its claw and placed her with Yukari in the mangled car before they could reach her.

Inside the car, Yukari had been slow to get out of her shock, but when she had, she rushed to get her foot unstuck so she could get out before something worse happened. When the shadow had grabbed Juno, it only drove Yukari to move faster to try to help her friend. She grew more and more panicked as she watched her helpless friend being beaten against the road, but her body was angled and stuck in a way that she couldn’t reach her evoker.

When Juno finally cracked and Fuuka stumbled out, and was quickly thrown in with Yukari, that’s when Yukari knew she had run out of time.

Fuuka’s limp body held her down so even the smallest movements she could make before were stopped. Yukari tried to rouse her friend for a response, but Fuuka didn’t even seem to be breathing. The blood on her friend’s forehead was wet and it rolled down her face and stained Yukari’s clothes. With another small kick for the umpteenth time, Yukari finally got her foot free.

Outside, the shadow held the car in two hands, looking inside. The metal began creaking and bending, the glass still in the side doors and back window of the car began to crack. Too much pressure was being used on the car, it would be crushed like a soda can if nothing happened soon.

Nothing S.E.E.S tried was working at all. Aigis had spent almost all of her bullets on the shadow to try to kill it. She had aimed for all the crucial spots, the eyes, the forehead, the legs, she even risked shooting at the hands with the risk of accidently harming her friends. Nothing brought the shadow down.

No Persona based attacks had worked, and Akihiko and Ken didn’t want to risk using electricity in fear of hurting Yukari and Fuuka. If their Personas got to close to the shadow, they were inevitably caught and crushed, which spent a lot of energy from the team.

After Fuuka had been thrown in, they grew desperate and tried rushing in themselves to attack. Ken narrowly dodged around the shadow’s feet as he sliced at its ankles and Minato and Junpei did the same on the other foot. Akihiko stayed back to monitor the shadow and conserve energy just in case the shadow decided to throw the car. They would need their Personas to catch it.

Mitsuru, Aigis and Koromaru were only a few steps away from Akihiko, discussing how they could try to wrench the car free from the shadow’s grasp.

“I could try to distract it by leaping on its head while you and Koromaru could try to get them free,” Aigis suggested.

“I wouldn’t want to risk putting you in that sort of danger, especially since you’re running out of ammo. We don’t seem to have many other options though,” Mitsuru replied.

A shout arose from the group attacking the shadow, drawing their attention to the others. The shadow had swatted down at them to get them to stop, but by doing so, it had lowered the car close to the ground. Their distraction had worked, as the shadow stopped crushing the vehicle. A loud crash came from the side as Yukari rammed into the passenger side of the car and rolled onto the asphalt with Fuuka in her arms. She limped away as fast as she could with her friend as the others tried to run from the shadow’s grasp.

Ken ducked and was small enough to avoid the shadow’s hand, but Junpei and Minato bumped into each other from the sudden attack and fell over. The shadow grabbed them both by the legs and the two struggled to try to grab onto something. They hung upside down and Junpei’s caps fluttered off his head to the ground as the shadow lifted them to eye level to get a good look at them.

“Shit,” Akihiko said as he ran up to the others, who had in turn ran over to Yukari and Fuuka to help them get away. Ken made it past the shadow, collecting Yukari’s bow and handing it back to her as well before he got over safely to the others. They all looked in horror up at the scene as they expected the shadow to crush the pair just like it had done with everything else.

What the shadow did instead surprised them all, but also spread a small amount of hope throughout the group. Instead of killing them instantly, the shadow seemed to be bored, or perhaps tired. It turned around with the teens still in hand and began to walk off down the road, back the way it came.

Mitsuru motioned to the Kirijo Group and immediately started ushering commands. “Take Takeba and Yamagishi to safety. Try to get them back to the mansion, if you can’t make it that far, the dorm will have to do. We’ll catch up with you later, but they need medical attention immediately. Come back for us later, we need to help those two,” she pointed at the shadow walking down the road. They nodded and wrapped their arms around the two girls, one of them picking up Fuuka, who was still completely unconscious. Leonard took something from his belt and handed it to Mitsuru. It was a radio.

“We’ll be able to track you, but here’s so we can actually talk. We’ll get these two to safety, please be careful. Good luck,” He said. The workers made haste down the street, crossbows out and ready to fight anything that might stop them. S.E.E.S went the opposite way, sprinting down the street after the shadow, still tired, but pushing themselves forward to save their companions.

Junpei’s cap was left forgotten on the road.

 

In the shadow’s hand, Minato and Junpei flailed around and tried to push themselves free. Their arms weren’t pinned at their sides, but their bodies were caught up to their waist, so they couldn’t grab their evokers. Their swords had been sheathed before they had been plucked from the ground, but Minato could feel his coming loose. The boys’ backs were pressed against each other so they couldn’t see each other, but Minato could hear the muttered curses that Junpei was spouting as he freaked out.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Minato, what are we going to do? I can’t reach my evoker, dude!”

“Calm down Junpei.”

“How can you expect me to be calm? Where’s this thing even going anyways?”

Minato turned his head in response to that, looking ahead at the shadow’s chosen path. Nothing seemed to jump out at him at first glance. Even if it was a shadow, it did seem to have some sort of direction in mind, but Minato couldn’t figure out where the large thing would go.

As he skimmed each building, it really should have stuck out to him the first time. It was his turn to curse.

“Shit,” Minato said, his eyes widening.

“What? What is it?” Junpei asked, turning his head to look in the same direction.

“I think it’s going to Tartarus.”

 

In any other situation, Akihiko would have been impressed with the speed everyone was moving at. They had managed to keep the distance between them and the shadow consistent as they chased after the others. It really wasn’t the time to be thinking of their capabilities like that, but after everything that had happened, Akihiko figured he could have been thinking of worse things.

They were fortunate enough that the shadow ahead of them hadn’t decided to move any faster, or make too much noise to attract the other shadows. Though the second part of that thought was probably answered by the fact that most shadows would be too afraid to get near the giant thing.

“It appears to be heading to Tartarus,” Aigis speaking up jolted Akihiko out of his thoughts and he focused his vision past the shadow to the path in front of him.

Tartarus was in front of them all, just as she had said. The mystic mass of shapes that jutted out from the tower looked the same as it always, yet a new sense of urgency overtook Akihiko when he realized what Aigis said was correct. They had been lucky so far as to not run into many shadows since their time returning, but there were sure to be hundreds of them in there now. They had to hurry and stop the shadow before it went in.

 

Minato focused his energy on trying to pry the shadow’s fingers apart with Junpei’s help, attempting to make enough room for them to slip out. It really wasn’t the best plan they had, considering that even if they did loosen its grasp they would just hit the ground from a height that was too far from the ground to be safe.

When Minato did succeed in pushing one of its fingers out, the shadow simply shifted its claws to adapt to the change, cupping his hands with the pair trapped inside.

The blood flow in their legs wasn’t being cut off anymore and they could move around now, but they could barely see, with what little light being cut off.

Minato heard Junpei unsheathe his sword.

“Wait,” he said. He couldn’t see whether or not Junpei actually looked over at him for an explanation, but he went on anyways. “If we just start slicing at this thing’s hands, it could just crush us. Heck, we don’t even know what it’s thinking, it might just act on reflex. We should wait for a better opportunity, or at least for the others to show up.”

Junpei didn’t respond at first, instead the click of his sword being put back answered for him until he muttered a quiet, “Alright.”

The air was stale and his eyes weren’t adjusting to the dark fast enough, which was making Minato extremely uncomfortable. Junpei seemed to have settled against the shadow’s hand across from him so he did the same, wondering how they were going to get away from the shadow.

There only seemed to be one option for them to prepare themselves for anything that might happen next, so Minato took his evoker from his belt and held it in his hand, telling Junpei to do the same.

The swaying movement akin to a sailboat on rough seas knocked around the Persona-users until they crashed to a halt, nearly tripped over by the sudden stop.

When the movement resumed, it was beginning to make Junpei motion sick. The shadow was moving, but no longer forward or backward.

“Minato, what’s it doing?” Junpei whispered. Minato didn’t respond and Junpei couldn’t see the utterly confused expression his friend wore.

 

When the shadow finally reached the base of Tartarus, Mitsuru and Akihiko were already forming a plan to block the door that lead to the inside so they could corner the shadow.

Mitsuru readied Artemisia to freeze the entryway shut when the shadow made an unexpected move. Instead of walking towards the entrance, it walked over to an outcropping on the tower and pulled itself up.

“No way,” Ken stuttered in disbelief as the shadow started to climb the outside of Tartarus as if it were a rock wall.

“Should we go inside Tartarus and follow it up?” Akihiko asked aloud to no-one in particular.

Mitsuru answered with her eyes still trained on the shadow. Her words wavered as if she were unsure of what she was saying was correct. “No. Tartarus could be filled with shadows, we’d likely be walking into a death trap. I don’t think we have any other choice but to follow it up, just keep your distance.”

With that, everyone summoned their Personas and hopped on, following the shadow. Akihiko had a grip on Koromaru, who still wasn’t able to ride his Persona safely.

Their Personas hovered up on the same holds the shadow was using, who was ahead of them by roughly fifteen feet. Certain areas on the tower looked unstable, so Mitsuru instructed them before they started the climb to follow her lead. In front of their group, Mitsuru could see the shadow’s hands cupped together, most likely holding Arisato and Iori.

“Everyone, freeze!” Ken yelled from near the back of the group. Mitsuru turned her head to look back down at the group, separating Ken from the others to try and figure out what was wrong.

Ken was staring to the left of the tower, but she had just climbed on top of a stoop that had a large wall jutting out, so she couldn’t see what was there. Behind her, Akihiko supplied her with an answer.

“It’s more of those flying shadows!” He called up. “They don’t see us yet, but they will in a minute if we don’t do something!”

The gears in Mitsuru’s head started turning quickly for a solution. They really didn’t have time to fight right now, especially on top of their Personas scaling the side of a building.

Mitsuru scanned her surroundings with a glance and her eyes fell on a row ornate stone window frames, deep enough to stand in to hide.

She dispelled Artemisia and gestured to the others, saying, “Follow me.”

Akihiko climbed up quickly and released Koromaru on the platform, waiting to help pull the others up if they needed it.

Ken was next, who got up on the ledge fine and rushed over with Mitsuru’s command into the dark space, well hidden from view. He called Koromaru in with him, and the dog followed, sitting at his feet.

Aigis followed and Mitsuru shoved Akihiko into one of the frames, uttering a quiet apology as she quickly hid as well.

She made it just in time as a swarm of shadows flew clumsily past the tower, weaving through the air like bats. They looked to have just gotten out of a fight, as some of their wings were bent and their fur was matted and bare in some spots. The shadows left their view quickly, but they stayed hidden for a few moments longer to be sure.

Stepping back out onto the platform, Aigis made slow and careful movements to stay quiet, looking around her for any signs of danger. She gave the all clear and looked up to get a visual on the giant shadow.

“They’re gone,” She said once the others had stepped out.

Mitsuru hurried over next to the android to look up the tower wall as well, her eyes widening. The shadow had vanished completely, but there was no way they could have reached the top in such a short amount of time.

“There must be some sort of opening somewhere, come on!” She urged, summoning Artemisia once more. She started the climb faster, and the others followed her with the same pace.

“Keep your eyes open for some sort of hole or something!” Mitsuru said to the others as she flew up another floor.

With each floor she passed, Aigis paused to carefully scan all of her surroundings to the best of her ability. She kept a silent count of how many floors they passed in her head. There were several spots where small shadows could fit in, but nothing like the large one. She looked down past Ken to double check her scan when she stopped.

“Ken, do you see that?” She pointed past him to the right at a large hole covered by a slanted panel. It was well hidden, but still remarkably present, and there was no denying it. That space had to be where they were. Aigis grabbed the attention of Mitsuru and Akihiko and lead everyone to the spot, slipping in.

Her feet touched the ground with a loud clack that echoed throughout the whole space. It was pitch black, and without a light, it was impossible to move around.

Aigis heard the others fall in behind her, Akihiko being the first to pierce the silence with words.

“I can’t see shit.”

A light smack followed afterwards, which Aigis concluded to most likely be Mitsuru hitting him.

“Anyone have a light?” Ken asked.

Koromaru barked and the familiar sound of a Persona being summoned sliced the thick silence next. Cerberus’ three jaws lit up with fire, providing three torches that lit up the room.

A doorway was visible at the end of the empty room and no shadows in sight.

Koromaru and Cerberus walked in front of the group, Koromaru sniffing the ground for any trace of their friends. They passed through the doorway down a long hallway with a high ceiling. As they reached the end, a large set of doors stood in their way with the loud voice of Junpei muffled on the other side.

The large door was lighter than it looked, and the five members peeked in over each other’s shoulders at the room.

It was bright with green moonlight lighting up the whole room. The wall to the right was littered with tiny spaces that allowed the light too pour through. The room was large and filled with things that clearly didn’t belong in Tartarus. There were cars and clothes in two separate piles in one corner and a pile of furniture in the corner opposite. Large machinery like dump trucks and cranes and even a boat was on the floor. It was truly a sight to behold, definitely on the weirder side of the list of things they’d seen during the Dark Hour. The icing on the cake was what their friends were caught up doing.

The large shadow had reverted back to its two-arm form and sat on the floor in the middle of everything, looking at its feet. The forms of Minato and Junpei were there, but they weren’t attacking the shadow.

They slipped into the room unnoticed and hid behind the boat, while the shadow turned away to rifle through the pile of clothes.

“ _Pssst. Hey. Hey!_ ” Akihiko whisper-shouted. Minato and Junpei turned in surprise towards the boat.

“ _What’s going on?_ ” He continued.

“ _Something’s weird with this shadow. It’s not attacking us, but it won’t let us leave!_ ” Junpei whispered back. The point was furthered as the shadow tried to hand something to Junpei.

Fed up, Junpei shouted at it, “I told you, I’m a dude! I’m not putting on a bra!” Minato stifled his laughter as Junpei threw the bra at the ground. The shadow didn’t seem phased by his squawking and handed him a feathered pirate hat next.

Junpei sighed, taking it and putting it on his head. The shadow perked up and went back to the pile to look for something else.

“ _How are Yukari and Fuuka_?” Minato asked, still trying not to laugh at the crumbled bra on the ground.

“ _We think they’ll be fine, the Kirijo Group took them to get medical help_ ,” Akihiko said back. “ _Now how are we going to get you two out of this mess_?”

“ _I haven’t figured it out yet, but I think attacking it is probably a bad idea. My best plan is to hide when its back is turned and sneak out, or to just play along and see how it goes. I don’t think were in any danger here_ ,” The shadow turned and offered Minato a bowler hat, which he put on after he was done talking. The shadow couldn’t seem to comprehend that Minato was talking to someone else in the room and pulled a table and two chairs up to them.

Minato sat down, motioned Junpei to follow along with him, which he did, begrudgingly. Satisfied, the shadow did one final turn, accompanied this time with a horrible smell.

A small shadow corpse was placed on the table in, still pulsing with shreds of life. The awful smell and the ghastly sight of the gory shadow made Junpei want to puke. The large shadow feasted on the corpse of a larger shadow and stared expectantly at the two boys several bites in.

“…I think it wants us to eat it, Junpei,” Minato said.

“Oh, _hell_ _no_ ,” Junpei said, his hands covering his nose and mouth from the smell.

Minato tore off a piece of the shadow and looked as if he were about to eat it (Much to everyone’s disgust) before he dropped it in his lap and pretended to swallow. The shadow looked to Junpei next.

Junpei followed Minato, getting his hands covered in shadow ichor as he tore a piece off, but threw it across the room in surprise when the supposedly dead shadow on the table jerked suddenly and startled him.

Everyone stayed still as they looked to see how the shadow would react. It paused before it almost seemed to laughing sound, and threw its own food across the room as if it were a game.

The room lost its tension in an instant and the shadow moved the table away, picking up a car next and rolling it back and forth on the ground as if it were a toy. Minato and Junpei shared a look with each other and began to slowly get up from their seats until the shadow jerked its head up as if it sensed something.

It turned its head in the air a few times like it was straining to hear something before it nearly tossed the car away and scooped the boys up roughly, running to the hole-filled wall.

The others ran after it, Mitsuru and Aigis taking the front, determined to not let the shadow get away this time.

The shadow finally saw the group, but not as a threat. It stopped itself before it tried to climb away to wherever and tried to pick up the others.

They leapt out of the way from its hands and the shadow grew more desperate. The extra set of arms sprung out of its back and succeeded in grabbing ahold of everyone but Aigis.

A loud noise erupted from outside, interrupting the concerned sounds coming from the large shadow. Ken slipped out of the shadow’s hand easily, as it had rushed in scooping everyone up and its grip was not firm. He vaulted himself onto one of the ledges and peered out one of the holes in the wall.

The shadow gave up trying to gather S.E.E.S and climbed up to the ceiling, latching itself onto some bars that jutted out. It folded its arms and hung like a hammock, curled up in fear and shaking like a leaf.

Aigis rushed up the wall after it as Ken scanned the city through the window, trying to find the source of the noise. The room they were in was extremely high up the tower, and looking down, Ken realized he would have a hard time finding what he assumed would be a shadow making all that noise.

His eyes skimmed each section of the city, looking for any movement. He lingered on a strip mall when he saw a large group of snake shadows collected there, weaving in and around the shops. They appeared to be endlessly streaming from one of the shops in particular, one that Ken was sure was the deli that he had passed by with Koromaru on a walk once. He made a mental note to stay away from that area and to tell the others.

Moving on, he tried to block out the sound coming from within the room, which consisted of the team struggling to get out of the shadows grasp, who was much more interested in hiding than anything else. He heard the sound of feet hitting the floor and briefly tore his eyes from the window to see that Aigis had wrestled Minato and Mitsuru out of the shadow’s cocoon of safety. Aigis made her way up to get the others.

The noise shook the tower again, but Ken couldn’t make out what it was. He knew it sounded familiar, like he should know what it was, but no mattered how hard he strained his mind, he only drew blanks.

The two newly escaped teens climbed up next to Ken and joined him in the search of the city, and it wasn’t until the third time the sound broke out and the rest of the team got away that Minato spotted it.

“There,” he said, pushing his hand through the wall to point in the direction of Moonlight Bridge.

Nothing was on the bridge itself, but hovering above the water to the right of it was a large shape almost hidden in the darkness.

Everyone was sitting up on the wall now, looking down at the shape. The water around it was thrashing and moving in a whirlpool like fashion, sending growing waves to hit the land.

The sound hit the air again, this time accompanied with the visual of a contracting movement the shadow made. It grew and shrunk as the sound spread through the night, causing their strange friend on the ceiling to start shuddering harder.

Once more, a large wave hit the land, soaking the street and almost reaching one of the buildings. A disdained look overtook Minato’s face when the realization hit him.

“We’re going to have to fight that thing without Fuuka. If we don’t get rid of it now, it won’t take long before the whole city it leveled by the waves that thing is making,” Minato stood up and climbed down the ledge, walking towards the only door. He turned back to the others and asked, “Are you guys ready for a battle without support?”

.

Getting down Tartarus was a lot easier than climbing it. All the shadows seemed to have gone into hiding like the large one they had left in the room had, because the streets they ran through were empty.

Making their way to the bridge was an easy task, they were a little tired but the pressing sound from the shadow and the growing crashing sounds of water pushed them forward.

Standing on the bridge looking out over at the shadow satisfied their minds in some way.

It would be one of the difficult shadows, as it followed the same line of human anatomy shadows they previously fought. This shadow in particular was a humungous set of lungs, surrounded by a black ribcage that seemed to act as a shield. The noises, Ken found out, was heavy breathing, something he knew well as someone who fought almost every day. As the lungs took in air and expunged it again, a huge wave of force slammed into the water, causing it to roll up to the city in such big waves.

Everyone grabbed their evokers and readied themselves to fight. Minato couldn’t think of much of a plan, and there wasn’t any way they could guess what the shadow would do without Fuuka.

“You guys ready?” He asked, glancing at his side to the others.

They all looked at each other and then back to Minato, trying their hardest to put on a brave face. This battle was sure to be a lot more difficult, but they had to try.


End file.
